Can an internal setter of a property be serialized?

Question

Is there any way to serialize a property with an internal setter in C#?
I understand that this might be problematic - but if there is a way - I would like to know.

Example:

[Serializable] public class Person {     public int ID { get; internal set; }     public string Name { get; set; }     public int Age { get; set; } } 

Code that serializes an instance of the class Person:

Person person = new Person(); person.Age = 27; person.Name = "Patrik"; person.ID = 1;  XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Person)); TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(@"c:\test.xml"); serializer.Serialize(writer, person); writer.Close(); 

Result (missing the ID property):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Person xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"         xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">   <Name>Patrik</Name>   <Age>27</Age> </Person> 

Answer 1

If it is an option, DataContractSerializer (.NET 3.0) can serialize non-public properties:

[DataContract] public class Person {     [DataMember]     public int ID { get; internal set; }     [DataMember]     public string Name { get; set; }     [DataMember]     public int Age { get; set; } } ... static void Main() {     Person person = new Person();     person.Age = 27;     person.Name = "Patrik";     person.ID = 1;      DataContractSerializer serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(Person));     XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(@"c:\test.xml");     serializer.WriteObject(writer, person);     writer.Close(); } 

With the xml (re-formatted):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Person xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"         xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/">     <Age>27</Age>     <ID>1</ID>     <Name>Patrik</Name> </Person> 

Answer 2

You can implement IXmlSerializable, unfortunately this negates the most important benefit of XmlSerializer (the ability to declaratively control serialization). DataContractSerializer (xml based) and BinaryFormatter (binary based) could be used as alternatives to XmlSerializer each having its pros and cons.