C# snippet: Example of deserializing XML

XmlDeserializationExample.cs

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.IO;

public sealed class ServerConfig
{
    public sealed class Server
    {
        [XmlAttribute("host")]
        public string Host { get; set; }

        [XmlAttribute("port")]
        public int Port { get; set; }

        public Server()
        {
            host = "";
            port = 0;
        }
    }

    [XmlArray]
    public Server[] Servers { get; set; }

    [XmlAttribute("loggingEnabled")]
    public int LoggingEnabled { get; set; }

    public ServerConfig()
    {
        Servers = null;
        LoggingEnabled = 0;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Create an instance of ServerConfig from an XML string
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="xmlString">XML string containing &lt;ServerConfig&gt; element</param>
    /// <returns>ServerConfig instance</returns>
    /// <remarks>
    /// Throws an exception if the XML string is not valid.
    /// </remarks>
    public static ServerConfig FromXmlString(string xmlString)
    {
        var reader = new StringReader(xmlString);
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ServerConfig));
        var instance = (ServerConfig) serializer.Deserialize(reader);

        return instance;
    }
}

See http://undefinedvalue.com/2011/11/22/deserializing-objects-xml-c for details of what this does and how to use it.