Easy way to convert a Dictionary<string, string> to xml and vice versa

Question

Wondering if there is a fast way, maybe with linq?, to convert a Dictionary<string,string> into a XML document. And a way to convert the xml back to a dictionary.

XML can look like:

<root>       <key>value</key>       <key2>value</key2> </root> 

Answer 1

Dictionary to Element:

Dictionary<string, string> dict = new Dictionary<string,string>(); XElement el = new XElement("root",     dict.Select(kv => new XElement(kv.Key, kv.Value))); 

Element to Dictionary:

XElement rootElement = XElement.Parse("<root><key>value</key></root>"); Dictionary<string, string> dict = new Dictionary<string, string>(); foreach(var el in rootElement.Elements()) {    dict.Add(el.Name.LocalName, el.Value); } 

Answer 2

You can use DataContractSerializer. Code below.

    public static string SerializeDict()     {         IDictionary<string, string> dict = new Dictionary<string, string>();         dict["key"] = "value1";         dict["key2"] = "value2";         // serialize the dictionary         DataContractSerializer serializer = new DataContractSerializer(dict.GetType());          using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter())         {             using (XmlTextWriter writer = new XmlTextWriter(sw))             {                 // add formatting so the XML is easy to read in the log                 writer.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;                  serializer.WriteObject(writer, dict);                  writer.Flush();                  return sw.ToString();             }         }     }