xmlns='' was not expected

If you ever run into this XmlSerializer error: it's thrown because the name of the class being deserialized and the root node are not the same.

For example, if you're deserializing XML that looks something like this...

<PersonData>
    <FirstName>Bob</FirstName>
    <LastName>Black</LastName>
</PersonData>

...into a class called...

public class PersonDataXml
{
...
}

...you'll get this error.

To resolve, just add the XmlRootAttribute to your class, thusly...

[XmlRoot( "PersonData" )]
public class PersonDataXml
{
...
}

Now XmlSerializer won't get all confused.

Technorati Tags: XmlSerializer,XmlRootAttribute,xmlns