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

The following function can be copied to any object to add an XML save function using the System.Xml namespace.

/// <summary>
/// Saves to an xml file
/// </summary>
/// <param name="FileName">File path of the new xml file</param>
public void Save(string FileName)
{
    using (var writer = new System.IO.StreamWriter(FileName))
    {
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(this.GetType());
        serializer.Serialize(writer, this);
        writer.Flush();
    }
}

To create the object from the saved file, add the following function and replace [ObjectType] with the object type to be created.

/// <summary>
/// Load an object from an xml file
/// </summary>
/// <param name="FileName">Xml file name</param>
/// <returns>The object created from the xml file</returns>
public static [ObjectType] Load(string FileName)
{
    using (var stream = System.IO.File.OpenRead(FileName))
    {
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof([ObjectType]));
        return serializer.Deserialize(stream) as [ObjectType];
    }
}

Answer 2

my work code. Returns utf8 xml enable empty namespace.

// override StringWriter
public class Utf8StringWriter : StringWriter
{
    public override Encoding Encoding => Encoding.UTF8;
}

private string GenerateXmlResponse(Object obj)
{    
    Type t = obj.GetType();

    var xml = "";

    using (StringWriter sww = new Utf8StringWriter())
    {
        using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(sww))
        {
            var ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
            // add empty namespace
            ns.Add("", "");
            XmlSerializer xsSubmit = new XmlSerializer(t);
            xsSubmit.Serialize(writer, obj, ns);
            xml = sww.ToString(); // Your XML
        }
    }
    return xml;
}

Example returns response Yandex api payment Aviso url:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><paymentAvisoResponse xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" performedDatetime="2017-09-01T16:22:08.9747654+07:00" code="0" shopId="54321" invoiceId="12345" orderSumAmount="10643" />

Answer 3

Or you can add this method to your object:

    public void Save(string filename)
    {
        var ser = new XmlSerializer(this.GetType());
        using (var stream = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Create))
            ser.Serialize(stream, this);
    }

Answer 4

All upvoted answers above are correct. This is just simplest version:

private string Serialize(Object o)
{
    using (var writer = new StringWriter())
    {
        new XmlSerializer(o.GetType()).Serialize(writer, o);
        return writer.ToString();
    }
}

Answer 5

Here is a good tutorial on how to do this

You should basically use System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer class to do this.