Deserialize XML with ampersand using XmlSerializer()

Question

The following code breaks when the XML has data like "Lord & Hogan". Any suggestions? Thanks, Ken

    private T GetResponse<T>(String apiObject, String query)
    {
        //Deserialize XML into the type specified.
        HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(BuildRequestUri(apiObject, query));
        using (HttpWebResponse resp = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
        {
            try
            {
                XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
                return (T)ser.Deserialize(resp.GetResponseStream());
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                error = e.InnerException.ToString();
                return default(T);
            }
        }
    }

Solution 1

From here:

A literal ampersand inside an XML tag is not allowed by the XML standard, and such a document will fail to parse by any XML parser.

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Solution 2

you should XML-encode data like "Lord & Hogan". It should be encoded like this:

"Lord & Hogan"

Solution 3

& in xml should be replaced with & otherwise it's invalid character.

Solution 4

Here is function that can be used to replace all of the disallowed chars: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.securityelement.escape(v=vs.110).aspx

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