Default Content for Lists and Implicit Collection-based Child Element Support via XmlElementAttribute

[Mike-E-angelo]

This has popped up now several times with #229 and #239 and is becoming a bit of a headache as it is not an easy fix. Essentially, we differ from the classic serializer when the XmlElement is applied to a property. The problem is that we do not have any easy way of establishing a property context when an unexpected property name is encountered.

Well, actually, the real problem is that I have a very difficult time working with XmlReader and XmlWriter (while keeping everything performant), so it takes me a while to wrangle my emotions around these suckers. 😂

I will have to give this some thought, but the last time I looked into this it was going to be disruptive.

[Mike-E-angelo]

Gah, this is such a brutal item. I've been taking a look around this one for the past several days -- what feels like a week 😆 -- and still have no idea of the best way to tackle it. The work done on #192 is actually a good blueprint. Maybe I will be able to work with it.

I hate that this is really the only item that we haven't been able to resolve. So, time to resolve it. :P

[Mike-E-angelo]

Hah... actually, it's kinda funny as I just now realized that the EnableXmlText (#192) does pretty much everything required to make this work. I can't believe I didn't see this earlier -- I really checked out of this issue. 😆

I should have this addressed sometime today or tomorrow. 👍 Let's see how I do. :P

[Mike-E-angelo]

Egads, what a mess.

I was able to get this working somewhat. If the object being serialized contains the list being serialized/deserialized, and that those list items are the last elements in the entire document, then this works.

Example:
https://github.com/wojtpl2/ExtendedXmlSerializer/blob/3b3288983b511ff20d5ed3306ffb2d06e3471cf1/test/ExtendedXmlSerializer.Tests/ReportedIssues/Issue240Tests.cs#L27-L41

However, if the object is contained within another object, then it doesn't. Example:
https://github.com/wojtpl2/ExtendedXmlSerializer/blob/3b3288983b511ff20d5ed3306ffb2d06e3471cf1/test/ExtendedXmlSerializer.Tests/ReportedIssues/Issue240Tests.cs#L43-L59

Based on the current infrastructure (and the sheer amount of time I have spent), I am marking this scenario as not-possible/won't-fix for v2. The best we can do is point future developers who would like this functionality and see if the above works for them. The other (only) way to fix this is a complete rewrite of the functionality, which is what I am already doing with v3.

Sorry all. I tried. :(