Deserializing empty XML tags in C# with enumerations

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C#

XML

XSD

deserialization

Hello,

(* I'm using LinqPad to test this, that's why you can see the .Dump() call at the end of my sample)

In this code, I'm getting "Instance validation error: '' is not a valid value for claves_sexo", because it is empty:

void Main()
{
  string xmlString = "<Products><Product><Id>1</Id><Name>My XML product</Name><Sexo></Sexo></Product></Products>";

  XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<Product>), new XmlRootAttribute("Products"));

  StringReader stringReader = new StringReader(xmlString);

  List<Product> productList = (List<Product>)serializer.Deserialize(stringReader);

  productList.Dump();

}

public class Product
{
	public int Id { get; set; }
	public string Name { get; set; }
	
	public claves_sexo Sexo {get;set;}
}

public enum claves_sexo
{
	HO,
	MU,
	ND
}

I would like the Sexo member of Product, to be assigned the value ND = 2 for the enum when it's not informed.

Thanks in advance,

Roger

What I have tried:

I've been playing with the XmlIgnore attribute and created another member to import the value for the empty tag as a String, and assign it to Sexo member, but I didn't succeeded.