XML Serialization in C#

Question

Where Can I find good tutorial about XMl serialization to the object? Thanks.

Answer 1

Its really pretty simple, there are only three main steps.

1. You need to mark your classes with the [Serializable] attribute.
2. Write Serialization code
3. Write Deserialization code

Serialization:

var x = new XmlSerializer(typeof(YourClass));
var fs = new FileStream(@"C:\YourFile.xml"), FileMode.OpenOrCreate);
x.Serialize(fs, yourInstance);
fs.Close();

Deserialization:

var x = new XmlSerializer(typeof(YourClass));
var fs = new FileStream(@"C:\YourFile.xml"), FileMode.Open);
var fromFile = x.Deserialize(fs) as YourClass;
fs.Close();

Answer 2

There's a basic tutorial on Microsoft's support pages and their code example is only a few lines long:

using System;

public class clsPerson
{
  public  string FirstName;
  public  string MI;
  public  string LastName;
}

class class1
{ 
   static void Main(string[] args)
   {
      clsPerson p=new clsPerson();
      p.FirstName = "Jeff";
      p.MI = "A";
      p.LastName = "Price";
      System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer x = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(p.GetType());
      x.Serialize(Console.Out, p);
      Console.WriteLine();
      Console.ReadLine();
   }
}

Basically you don't have to anything other than call the built in functions that do all the hard work for you.