Using DataContractSerializers with the Eve Online API

After browsing the Eve Online forums I came across a project someone was writing in VB.NET to make their industry life easier.

The problem, I thought, was that they weren't treating the response from the API as an object which made it difficult to read the code and debug it. I got to thinking, and came up with this bit of code to parse the Characters.xml response. You just have to construct the class with the response you get after you call Characters.xml.

Imports System.IO

Imports System.Xml.Schema

Imports System.Xml.Serialization

Imports System.Runtime.Serialization



Public Class xmlParser

   Public api As eveapi



   Public Sub New(ByVal eveApiXmlResponse As String)

       api = parseXml(eveApiXmlResponse)



       For Each charList As characterList In api.characterLists

           For Each eveChar As eveCharacter In charList.characters

               MessageBox.Show(eveChar.name)

           Next

       Next

   End Sub



   Private Function parseXml(ByVal eveResponse As String) As eveapi

       Dim xmlRoot As XmlRootAttribute = New XmlRootAttribute

       xmlRoot.ElementName = "eveapi"

       xmlRoot.IsNullable = True

       Dim serializer As New XmlSerializer(GetType(eveapi), xmlRoot)

       Dim ms As New MemoryStream(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(eveResponse))



       Return CType(serializer.Deserialize(ms), eveapi)

   End Function

End Class





Partial Public Class eveapi

   Public Property currentTime As String

   Public Property cachedUntil As String



   <System.Xml.Serialization.XmlArrayAttribute("result", Form:=XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified), _

   System.Xml.Serialization.XmlArrayItemAttribute("rowset", GetType(characterList), Form:=XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified)> _

   Public Property characterLists As List(Of characterList)



   Public Property version As String



End Class



<XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType:=True)> _

Partial Public Class characterList

   <System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("row", Form:=XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified)> _

   Public Property characters As List(Of eveCharacter)



   Public Property name As String

   Public Property key As String

   Public Property columns As String

End Class



<XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType:=True)> _

Partial Public Class eveCharacter



   <XmlAttributeAttribute()> _

   Public Property name As String



   <XmlAttributeAttribute()> _

   Public Property characterID As String



   <XmlAttributeAttribute()> _

   Public Property corporationName As String



   <XmlAttributeAttribute()> _

   Public Property corporationID As String



End Class