XmlTextAttribute.DataType Property

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Gets or sets the XML Schema definition (XSD) language data type of the text generated by the XmlSerializer.

Namespace:  System.Xml.Serialization
Assembly:  System.Xml (in System.Xml.dll)

Syntax

'Declaration
Public Property DataType As String
public string DataType { get; set; }

Property Value

Type: System.String
An XML Schema (XSD) data type, as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) document, XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes.

Exceptions

Exception Condition
Exception

The XML Schema data type you have specified cannot be mapped to the .NET data type.

InvalidOperationException

The XML Schema data type you have specified is invalid for the property and cannot be converted to the member type.

Remarks

Setting the DataType property to an XML Schema simple data type affects the format of the generated XML. For example, setting the property to "date" causes the generated text to be formatted in the general date style, for example: 2001-08-31. By contrast, setting the property to "dateTime" results in a specific instant as defined by the International Organization for Standardization document 8601, "Representations of Dates and Times", for example: 2001-08-15T06:59:11.0508456-07:00.

The following table lists the XML Schema simple data types with their .NET equivalents.

XSD data type

.NET data type

anyURI

String

base64Binary

Array of Byte objects

boolean

Boolean

byte

SByte

date

DateTime

dateTime

DateTime

decimal

Decimal

double

Double

ENTITY

String

ENTITIES

String

float

Single

gDay

String

gMonth

String

gMonthDay

String

gYear

String

gYearMonth

String

hexBinary

Array of Byte objects

ID

String

IDREF

String

IDREFS

String

int

Int32

integer

String

language

String

long

Int64

Name

String

NCName

String

negativeInteger

String

NMTOKEN

String

NMTOKENS

String

normalizedString

String

nonNegativeInteger

String

nonPositiveInteger

String

NOTATION

String

positiveInteger

String

QName

XmlQualifiedName

duration

String

string

String

short

Int16

time

DateTime

token

String

unsignedByte

Byte

unsignedInt

UInt32

unsignedLong

UInt64

unsignedShort

UInt16

For the XML Schema base64Binary and hexBinary data types, use an array of Byte structures, and apply a XmlTextAttribute with the DataType set to "base64Binary" or "hexBinary", as appropriate. For the XML Schema time and date data types, use the DateTime type and apply the XmlTextAttribute with the DataType set to "date" or "time".

For every XML Schema data type that is mapped to a string, apply the XmlTextAttribute with its DataType property set to the XML Schema data type. Note that this does not change the serialization format, only the schema for the member.

NoteNote:

The property is case-sensitive, so you must set it exactly to one of the XML Schema data types.

NoteNote:

Passing binary data as an XML element is more efficient than passing it as an XML attribute.

For more information about

XML Schema data types, see the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) document, XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes.

Version Information

Silverlight

Supported in: 5, 4, 3

Silverlight for Windows Phone

Supported in: Windows Phone OS 7.1, Windows Phone OS 7.0

XNA Framework

Supported in: Xbox 360, Windows Phone OS 7.0

Platforms

For a list of the operating systems and browsers that are supported by Silverlight, see Supported Operating Systems and Browsers.