Hi, when I try and run this statement:

XmlSerializer

s = new XmlSerializer(typeof(PlayerXMLClass.Player));

The XML is unusual in its structure:

<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?>
<plyr xmlns:xsi=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance\" xmlns:xsd=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema\">
 <club>Arsenal</club>
    <plyrdets>
       <first>Cesc</first>
       <last>Fab</last>
    </plyrdets>
    <plyrdets>
       <dob>12/12/1988</dob>
       <position>midfielder</position>
    </plyrdets>
</plyr>

The inner exception is:

The XML element 'plyrdets' from namespace is already present in the current scope. Use XML attributes to specify another XML name or namespace for the element.

 Can you post your code for your class please, just wanted to see how you've defined your class

[Serializable]
    [XmlRoot(ElementName = "plyr")] 
    public class Player
    {
        private string _club;
        private PlyrDetails _plyrDetails;
        private PlyrDetails2 _plyrDetails2;

        [XmlElement(ElementName = "club")]
        public string Club
        {
            get { return _club; }
            set { _club = value; }
        }

        [XmlElement(ElementName = "plyrdets")]
        public PlyrDetails PlyrDetails
        {
            get { return _plyrDetails; }
            set { _plyrDetails = value; }
        }

        [XmlElement(ElementName = "plyrdets")]
        public PlyrDetails2 PlyrDetails2
        {
            get { return _plyrDetails2; }
            set { _plyrDetails2 = value; }
        }
    }

    public class PlyrDetails
    {
        private string _firstName;
        private string _lastName;

        [XmlElement(ElementName = "first")]
        public string FirstName
        {
            get { return _firstName; }
            set { _firstName = value; }
        }

        [XmlElement(ElementName = "last")]
        public string LastName
        {
            get { return _lastName; }
            set { _lastName = value; }
        }
    }

    public class PlyrDetails2
    {
        private string _dob;
        private string _position;

        [XmlElement(ElementName = "dob")]
        public string Dob
        {
            get { return _dob; }
            set { _dob = value; }
        }

        [XmlElement(ElementName = "position")]
        public string Position
        {
            get { return _position; }
            set { _position = value; }
        }
    }

The answer lies in how you defined your class!

.. you have "PlyrDetails" and "PlyrDetails2" - despite having the same xmelement name because they are different classes you will have 2 different elements in your xml document.

Do you need 2 different player details classes or can you not have one? 

Hi, thanks for the response.

Unfortunately the way the XML is, I have to create two separate tags (plyrdets) but they have different contents. I understand that this is strange and probably a bad XML design however I need to create a serializable class to hold this information.

I can add an attribute to the tag to distinguish between them. Do you know how I can serialize this XML design (original post) into a class please?