Serializing a CodeDom as XML

Question

Is there a way to serialize a CodeCompileUnit object as XML.

The problem is that:

XmlSerializer xml = new XmlSerializer( typeof(CodeCompileUnit) );

throws the following exception:

"Cannot serialize member System.CodeDom.CodeObject.UserData of type System.Collections.IDictionary, because it implements IDictionary."

Answer 1

XmlSerializer has issues with IDictionary. It is now deprecated in favor of DataContractSerializer which can serialize a CodeCompileUnit instance:

var serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(CodeCompileUnit));
serializer.WriteObject(Console.OpenStandardOutput(), new CodeCompileUnit());

Answer 2

This is a limitation of the XML serializer : dictionaries can't be serialized (even though I don't see any good reason why). Actually they can be serialized if they implement IXmlSerializable (which, by the way, is a real pain to implement), but that's not the case for the UserData property... so you're stuck