XML Serializer – Sample Code – How to take a C# object and write it to a file in XML “serialized” format.
NOTE: Serialize means to take an object (in memory) and turn it to a format that can be preserved to disk (or sent over a wire). Deserialize means to take the serialized-format, and turn it back into an object (in memory).
Calling Program – to use Subroutine in Next Code Sample Below
<pre>
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml;
...
// Serialize an object in memory to disk.
XmlSerializer xs1 = new XmlSerializer(typeof(YourClassName));
StreamWriter sw1 = new StreamWriter(@"c:DeserializeYourObject.xml");
xs1.Serialize(sw1, objYourObjectFromYourClassName);
sw1.Close();
// Now to deserialize it - assuming this might be a different program, run later.
XmlSerializer xs2 = new XmlSerializer(typeof(YourClassName));
StreamReader sr2 = new StreamReader(@"c:DeserializeYourObject.xml");
// deserialize and cast back to proper class
objYourObjectFromYourClassName = (YourClassName) xs2.Deserialize(sr2);
sr2.Close();
Console.WriteLine ("Deserialize2 completed");
</pre>NOTE: Serializing to a string in memory is a lot trickier than you might think, because you have to deal with byteArrays, and encoding. Here’s a link to a page that explains how to do it:
XMLHelper Class Library – with SerializeObject and DeserializeObject
http://www.dotnetjohn.com/articles.aspx?articleid=173
Based on the above article, I put the following code in my “Common” C# Component library that is deployed on all my systems:
<pre>
/// <summary>
/// Method to convert a custom Object to XML string
/// </summary>
/// Object that is to be serialized to XML
/// XML string
public static String SerializeObject(Object pObject)
{
try
{
String XmlizedString = null;
MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream();
XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(pObject.GetType());
XmlTextWriter xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(memoryStream, Encoding.UTF8);
xs.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, pObject);
memoryStream = (MemoryStream)xmlTextWriter.BaseStream;
XmlizedString = UTF8ByteArrayToString(memoryStream.ToArray());
return XmlizedString;
}
catch (Exception e)
{
System.Console.WriteLine(e);
return null;
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Method to reconstruct turn XMLString back into Object
/// </summary>
///
///
public static Object DeserializeObject(String pXmlizedString, Type classType)
{
XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(classType);
MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream(StringToUTF8ByteArray(pXmlizedString));
XmlTextWriter xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(memoryStream, Encoding.UTF8);
return xs.Deserialize(memoryStream);
}
private static String UTF8ByteArrayToString(Byte[] characters)
{
UTF8Encoding encoding = new UTF8Encoding();
String constructedString = encoding.GetString(characters);
return (constructedString);
}
private static Byte[] StringToUTF8ByteArray(String pXmlString)
{
UTF8Encoding encoding = new UTF8Encoding();
Byte[] byteArray = encoding.GetBytes(pXmlString);
return byteArray;
}
</pre>Just wrap the above with your class name, and add these using statements:
<pre>
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Collections;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Xml.Schema;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.Text;
</pre>Added June 2020
Example C# Class To Serialize
The object to be serialized is created from the PurchaseOrder850 class below. This class happens to represent a EDI 850 Purchase Order, but same concept works with any class. This is shows a two level hierarchy, where one Purchase Order has many line items. So the first class (PurchaseOrder850) references the second class (PurchaseOrder850LineItem).
<pre>
public class PurchaseOrder850
{
public string PONum;
public string PODateText;
public DateTime PODate;
public string POType;
public string VendorNumber;
public string BuyerName;
public string BuyerTelephone;
public List<PurchaseOrder850LineItem> LineItems;
}
public class PurchaseOrder850LineItem
{
public string lineItem;
public int quantity;
public string uom;
public decimal price;
public string basisOfUnitPrice;
public string catalogNumber;
public string description;
public string dateRequiredTxt;
public DateTime dateRequired;
}
</pre>Example Serialized XML
<pre>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<PurchaseOrder850 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<PONum>1234567890</PONum>
<PODateText>20080827</PODateText>
<PODate>2008-08-27T00:00:00</PODate>
<POType>NE</POType>
<VendorNumber>2046159</VendorNumber>
<BuyerName>JANE WATSON</BuyerName>
<BuyerTelephone>800-555-1234</BuyerTelephone>
<LineItems>
<PurchaseOrder850LineItem>
<lineItem>00010</lineItem>
<quantity>50</quantity>
<uom>EA</uom>
<price>47.06</price>
<basisOfUnitPrice>HP</basisOfUnitPrice>
<catalogNumber>CATCR50</catalogNumber>
<description>CABLE RETAINER CLIP PLASTIC</description>
<dateRequiredTxt>20080903</dateRequiredTxt>
<dateRequired>2008-09-03T00:00:00</dateRequired>
</PurchaseOrder850LineItem>
<PurchaseOrder850LineItem>
<lineItem>00020</lineItem>
<quantity>200</quantity>
<uom>EA</uom>
<price>427.01</price>
<basisOfUnitPrice>HP</basisOfUnitPrice>
<catalogNumber>512</catalogNumber>
<description>T-BAR *** BOX HANGER</description>
<dateRequiredTxt>20080903</dateRequiredTxt>
<dateRequired>2008-09-03T00:00:00</dateRequired>
</PurchaseOrder850LineItem>
</LineItems>
</PurchaseOrder850>
</pre>