deserializing enums
You could declare the enum property as nullable:
public Language? Language { get; set; }EDIT: ok, I just tried, it doesn't work for attributes... Here's another option: don't serialize/deserialize this property directly, but serialize a string property instead :
[XmlIgnore]public Language Language { get; set; }[XmlAttribute("Language")]public string LanguageAsString{ get { return Language.ToString(); } set { if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(value)) { Language = default(Language); } else { Language = (Language)Enum.Parse(typeof(Language), value); } }}
You probably need to mark up your enumeration, and add a default item that represents Unknown.
For example:
Public Enum EmployeeStatus <XmlEnum("")> Unknown = 0 <XmlEnum("Single")> One = 1 <XmlEnum("Double")> Two = 2 <XmlEnum("Triple")> Three = 3End EnumFor more information, see here.
You can do it this way:
namespace Example{ public enum Language { [XmlEnum("en")] English, [XmlEnum("de")] Deutsch } public class ExampleClass { private Language? language; [XmlAttribute("Language")] public Language Language { get { return language ?? Example.Language.English; } set { language = value; } } . . . }}