Serialize an object to string

Question

I have the following method to save an Object to a file:

// Save an object out to the disk public static void SerializeObject<T>(this T toSerialize, String filename) {     XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(toSerialize.GetType());     TextWriter textWriter = new StreamWriter(filename);      xmlSerializer.Serialize(textWriter, toSerialize);     textWriter.Close(); } 

I confess I did not write it (I only converted it to a extension method that took a type parameter).

Now I need it to give the xml back to me as a string (rather than save it to a file). I am looking into it, but I have not figured it out yet.

I thought this might be really easy for someone familiar with these objects. If not I will figure it out eventually.

Answer 1

Use a StringWriter instead of a StreamWriter:

public static string SerializeObject<T>(this T toSerialize) {     XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(toSerialize.GetType());      using(StringWriter textWriter = new StringWriter())     {         xmlSerializer.Serialize(textWriter, toSerialize);         return textWriter.ToString();     } } 

Note, it is important to use toSerialize.GetType() instead of typeof(T) in XmlSerializer constructor: if you use the first one the code covers all possible subclasses of T (which are valid for the method), while using the latter one will fail when passing a type derived from T.    Here is a link with some example code that motivate this statement, with XmlSerializer throwing an Exception when typeof(T) is used, because you pass an instance of a derived type to a method that calls SerializeObject that is defined in the derived type's base class: http://ideone.com/1Z5J1.

Also, Ideone uses Mono to execute code; the actual Exception you would get using the Microsoft .NET runtime has a different Message than the one shown on Ideone, but it fails just the same.

Answer 2

Serialize and Deserialize XML/JSON (SerializationHelper.cs):

using Newtonsoft.Json; using System.IO; using System.Xml.Serialization;  namespace MyProject.Helpers {     public static class SerializationHelper     {         public static T DeserializeXml<T>(this string toDeserialize)         {             XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));             using (StringReader textReader = new StringReader(toDeserialize))             {                 return (T)xmlSerializer.Deserialize(textReader);             }         }          public static string SerializeXml<T>(this T toSerialize)         {             XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));             using (StringWriter textWriter = new StringWriter())             {                 xmlSerializer.Serialize(textWriter, toSerialize);                 return textWriter.ToString();             }         }          public static T DeserializeJson<T>(this string toDeserialize)         {             return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(toDeserialize);         }          public static string SerializeJson<T>(this T toSerialize)         {             return JsonConvert.SerializeObject(toSerialize);         }     } }