Unable to generate a temporary class (result=1). error CS0030: Cannot convert type 'Type[]' to 'Type'?

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I get this error after I created a class from my xsd file using the xsd.exe tool. So I searched the net and found a solution. Here is the link: http://satov.blogspot.com/2006/12/xsdexe-generated-classes-causing.html

Problem is that this makes the code run, but somehow the deserialized data seems corrupt. I did what the site suggests and in the end the 2nd array dimension is always empty (see the comments of the site, somebody also had this problem). Question is, how do I solve this issue now? Is there another tool to create the xsd file? I tried Xsd2Code, without success.

Thanks :-)

xml-deserialization xsd c#
8 Answers

This is really @WaldemarGałęzinowski's answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/35896991/157224 expanded a bit.

xsd.exe has an optimization that kicks in when you have a single unbounded element without attribute in a sequence.

Parent-Child

The optimization will avoid creating a special type for the parent and instead make it an array of children.

ChildType[] Parent { get; set; } instead of ParentType Parent { get; set; } and you access the children like Parent[0] instead of Parent.Child[0]. (I find this optimization a bit confusing sometimes)

What is happening here is you have one more level of unbounded, attribute-less element

Parent-child-grandchild

The optimization is applied twice and the result is GrandChildType[][] Parent {get; set;} and you access your favorite first grandchild like Parent[0][0] instead of Parent.Child[0].GrandChild[0].

The problem is the .Net serializer does not support arrays of arrays and generates invalid code.

I have no idea why Microsoft has not fixed this bug in all these years but the workaround is simple.

Just force xsd.exe to generate a class for the parent or child by adding an optional attribute or an optional element to the sequence. e.g. workaround

Which leads to Parent[0].GrandChild[0]

user_1572240
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