Serialize an object to XML

Question

I have a C# class that I have inherited. I have successfully \"built\" the object. But I need to serialize the object to XML. Is there an easy way to do it?

It looks

Answer 1

I modified mine to return a string rather than use a ref variable like below.

public static string Serialize<T>(this T value)
{
    if (value == null)
    {
        return string.Empty;
    }
    try
    {
        var xmlserializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
        var stringWriter = new StringWriter();
        using (var writer = XmlWriter.Create(stringWriter))
        {
            xmlserializer.Serialize(writer, value);
            return stringWriter.ToString();
        }
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        throw new Exception("An error occurred", ex);
    }
}

Its usage would be like this:

var xmlString = obj.Serialize();

Answer 2

Extension class:

using System.IO;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace MyProj.Extensions
{
    public static class XmlExtension
    {
        public static string Serialize<T>(this T value)
        {
            if (value == null) return string.Empty;

            var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));

            using (var stringWriter = new StringWriter())
            {
                using (var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(stringWriter,new XmlWriterSettings{Indent = true}))
                {
                    xmlSerializer.Serialize(xmlWriter, value);
                    return stringWriter.ToString();
                }    
            }
        }
    }
}

Usage:

Foo foo = new Foo{MyProperty="I have been serialized"};

string xml = foo.Serialize();

Just reference the namespace holding your extension method in the file you would like to use it in and it'll work (in my example it would be: using MyProj.Extensions;)

Note that if you want to make the extension method specific to only a particular class(eg., Foo), you can replace the T argument in the extension method, eg.

public static string Serialize(this Foo value){...}

Answer 3

Based on above solutions, here comes a extension class which you can use to serialize and deserialize any object. Any other XML attributions are up to you.

Just use it like this:

        string s = new MyObject().Serialize(); // to serialize into a string
        MyObject b = s.Deserialize<MyObject>();// deserialize from a string



internal static class Extensions
{
    public static T Deserialize<T>(this string value)
    {
        var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));

        return (T)xmlSerializer.Deserialize(new StringReader(value));
    }

    public static string Serialize<T>(this T value)
    {
        if (value == null)
            return string.Empty;

        var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));

        using (var stringWriter = new StringWriter())
        {
            using (var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(stringWriter, new XmlWriterSettings { Indent = true }))
            {
                xmlSerializer.Serialize(xmlWriter, value);
                return stringWriter.ToString();
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 4

Here's a basic code that will help serializing the C# objects into xml:

using System;

public class clsPerson
{
  public  string FirstName;
  public  string MI;
  public  string LastName;
}

class class1
{ 
   static void Main(string[] args)
   {
      clsPerson p=new clsPerson();
      p.FirstName = "Jeff";
      p.MI = "A";
      p.LastName = "Price";
      System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer x = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(p.GetType());
      x.Serialize(Console.Out, p);
      Console.WriteLine();
      Console.ReadLine();
   }
}    

Answer 5

    string FilePath = ConfigurationReader.FileLocation;   //Getting path value from web.config            
    XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Devices)); //typeof(object)
            MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();
            serializer.Serialize(memStream, lstDevices);//lstdevices : I take result as a list.
            FileStream file = new FileStream(folderName + "\\Data.xml", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite); //foldername:Specify the path to store the xml file
            memStream.WriteTo(file);
            file.Close();

You can create and store the result as xml file in the desired location.

Answer 6

It's a little bit more complicated than calling the ToString method of the class, but not much.

Here's a simple drop-in function you can use to serialize any type of object. It returns a string containing the serialized XML contents:

public string SerializeObject(object obj)
{
    System.Xml.XmlDocument xmlDoc = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();
    System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer serializer = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(obj.GetType());
    using (System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream()) {
        serializer.Serialize(ms, obj);
        ms.Position = 0;
        xmlDoc.Load(ms);
        return xmlDoc.InnerXml;
    }
}