make IT works

Wanna know a easy way to serialize your class to XML ???
Here we go…

This is the class myXMLSerializer.cs

We gonna need System.IO, System.Text and, of course, System.Xml.Serialization.
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Data;
using System.Text;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

I created a sealed class with one static method to make a common XML Serializer for my app, use as you wish.
namespace how2do.XML
{
    public sealed class myXMLSerializer
    {
      public static XmlDocument SerializeObject(Type type, object objToSerialize)
      {

Now we create a MemoryStream because we don’t want a file stream or whatever we see in a lot of examples over the internet, I just wanted to work with string-memory-XmlDocument… (I was so pissed off because I couldn’t find something similar, people assume we are always using .xml files)
        // Serialization
        MemoryStream mStream = new MemoryStream();

Here, the correct parameter shall be: … = new XmlSerializer(typeof(YourClass)); Ok?
        XmlSerializer objSerializer = new XmlSerializer(type);

I got a lot of problems using UTF8 here (to create the stream) and also using UTF8 converting to string
        //must be Encoding.Default due problems with UTF8Enconding which is used to get the XML as string
        XmlTextWriter xmlWriter = new XmlTextWriter(mStream, Encoding.Default);
        objSerializer.Serialize(xmlWriter, objToSerialize);

Now, taking the damn XML as string. Let’s create our beloved XmlDocument.
        XmlDocument xmlObject = new XmlDocument();

I’m using UTF8, don’t remember why… ah! XmlDocument.LoadXml is a pain in the ass, UFT8 works great =)
        UTF8Encoding encoding = new UTF8Encoding();
        mStream = (MemoryStream)xmlWriter.BaseStream;

The trick
        string strXML = encoding.GetString(mStream.ToArray());

Now loading into the XmlDocument using LoadXml(), not Load() because Load() is for files and files sucks.
        xmlObject.LoadXml(strXML);
        return xmlObject;
      }
    }
}


ABOUT THE CLASSES YOU WILL SERIALIZE

Don’t forget to use the XML Attributes into the classes you want to serialize.

• using System.Xml.Serialization;
• A parameterless contructor to your class, OR the class simply WON’T serialize
• [XmlAttribute] and others Attributes
• [XmlIgnore] in get/set property where can return a class which one you dont want/cannot create a parameterless constructor

If you have some property like this:
public string Name
{
  get { return this.strName; }
}
You must put a empty set otherwise the XML Serializer won’t get it (your class WILL be serialized but without james:
public string Name
{
  get { return this.strName; }
  set { }
}

Using:
XmlDocument xml = myXMLSerializer.SerializeObject(typeof(yourclass), yourinstance));

=)

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Code is Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.