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I am getting the following response from a standard MVC 4 WebApi project;

<ArrayOfProduct xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<Product>
<Id>1</Id>
<Name>Tomato Soup</Name>
<Category>Groceries</Category>
<Price>1</Price>
</Product>
</ArrayOfProduct>

I am trying to make it so that it returns

<Products>
<Product>
<Id>1</Id>
<Name>Tomato Soup</Name>
<Category>Groceries</Category>
<Price>1</Price>
</Product>
</Products>

I have found many reference to various methods that supposedly solve this, none work;

Changing the default serializer does not work.

Creating a customer serializer for Product does not work.

Creating a new class that has List<Product> exposed with suitable XmlRoot and XmlElement attributes does not work.

Adding Datacontract attributes does not work.

Adding CollectionDatacontract attributes does not work.

This appears to be so simple to everyone else, except me!

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Have you tried using the setting shown in this SO question and answer. Also, are you using the release version of the Web API? – Sixto Saez 14 hours ago
Yes, tried that and yes, it is release version. – ChrisBint 14 hours ago
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1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote

Try using the XmlSeriazlier instead:

config.Formatters.XmlFormatter.UseXmlSerializer = true;

And then try defining a class that derives from the collection of Product, and use [XmlRoot("Products")] to rename the element name from 'ArrayOfProduct' to 'Products'.

For example, instead of using List, use the class Products:

[XmlRoot("Products")]
public class Products : List<Product> { }

public class Product
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Category { get; set; }
    public double Price { get; set; }
}

ApiController's action:

    public Products Get()
    {
        return new Products()
        {
            new Product() 
            {
                Id = 1,
                Name = "Tomato Soup", 
                Category = "Groceries",
                Price = 1
            }
        };
    }
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