XML Serialize generic list of serializable objects

Solution 1:

I have an solution for a generic List<> with dynamic binded items.

class PersonalList it's the root element

[XmlRoot("PersonenListe")]
[XmlInclude(typeof(Person))] // include type class Person
public class PersonalList
{
    [XmlArray("PersonenArray")]
    [XmlArrayItem("PersonObjekt")]
    public List<Person> Persons = new List<Person>();

    [XmlElement("Listname")]
    public string Listname { get; set; }

    // Konstruktoren 
    public PersonalList() { }

    public PersonalList(string name)
    {
        this.Listname = name;
    }

    public void AddPerson(Person person)
    {
        Persons.Add(person);
    }
}

class Person it's an single list element

[XmlType("Person")] // define Type
[XmlInclude(typeof(SpecialPerson)), XmlInclude(typeof(SuperPerson))]  
        // include type class SpecialPerson and class SuperPerson
public class Person
{
    [XmlAttribute("PersID", DataType = "string")]
    public string ID { get; set; }

    [XmlElement("Name")]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [XmlElement("City")]
    public string City { get; set; }

    [XmlElement("Age")]
    public int Age { get; set; }

    // Konstruktoren 
    public Person() { }

    public Person(string name, string city, int age, string id)
    {
        this.Name = name;
        this.City = city;
        this.Age = age;
        this.ID = id;
    }
}

class SpecialPerson inherits Person

[XmlType("SpecialPerson")] // define Type
public class SpecialPerson : Person
{
    [XmlElement("SpecialInterests")]
    public string Interests { get; set; }

    public SpecialPerson() { }

    public SpecialPerson(string name, string city, int age, string id, string interests)
    {
        this.Name = name;
        this.City = city;
        this.Age = age;
        this.ID = id;
        this.Interests = interests;
    }
}

class SuperPerson inherits Person

[XmlType("SuperPerson")] // define Type
public class SuperPerson : Person
{
    [XmlArray("Skills")]
    [XmlArrayItem("Skill")]
    public List<String> Skills { get; set; }

    [XmlElement("Alias")]
    public string Alias { get; set; }

    public SuperPerson() 
    {
        Skills = new List<String>();
    }

    public SuperPerson(string name, string city, int age, string id, string[] skills, string alias)
    {
        Skills = new List<String>();

        this.Name = name;
        this.City = city;
        this.Age = age;
        this.ID = id;
        foreach (string item in skills)
        {
            this.Skills.Add(item);   
        }
        this.Alias = alias;
    }
}

and the main test Source

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    PersonalList personen = new PersonalList(); 
    personen.Listname = "Friends";

    // normal person
    Person normPerson = new Person();
    normPerson.ID = "0";
    normPerson.Name = "Max Man";
    normPerson.City = "Capitol City";
    normPerson.Age = 33;

    // special person
    SpecialPerson specPerson = new SpecialPerson();
    specPerson.ID = "1";
    specPerson.Name = "Albert Einstein";
    specPerson.City = "Ulm";
    specPerson.Age = 36;
    specPerson.Interests = "Physics";

    // super person
    SuperPerson supPerson = new SuperPerson();
    supPerson.ID = "2";
    supPerson.Name = "Superman";
    supPerson.Alias = "Clark Kent";
    supPerson.City = "Metropolis";
    supPerson.Age = int.MaxValue;
    supPerson.Skills.Add("fly");
    supPerson.Skills.Add("strong");

    // Add Persons
    personen.AddPerson(normPerson);
    personen.AddPerson(specPerson);
    personen.AddPerson(supPerson);

    // Serialize 
    Type[] personTypes = { typeof(Person), typeof(SpecialPerson), typeof(SuperPerson) };
    XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(PersonalList), personTypes); 
    FileStream fs = new FileStream("Personenliste.xml", FileMode.Create); 
    serializer.Serialize(fs, personen); 
    fs.Close(); 
    personen = null;

    // Deserialize 
    fs = new FileStream("Personenliste.xml", FileMode.Open); 
    personen = (PersonalList)serializer.Deserialize(fs); 
    serializer.Serialize(Console.Out, personen);
    Console.ReadLine();
}

Important is the definition and includes of the diffrent types.

Solution 2:

See Introducing XML Serialization:

Items That Can Be Serialized

The following items can be serialized using the XmlSerializer class:

• Public read/write properties and fields of public classes
• Classes that implement ICollection or IEnumerable
• XmlElement objects
• XmlNode objects
• DataSet objects

In particular, ISerializable or the [Serializable] attribute does not matter.

Now that you've told us what your problem is ("it doesn't work" is not a problem statement), you can get answers to your actual problem, instead of guesses.

When you serialize a collection of a type, but will actually be serializing a collection of instances of derived types, you need to let the serializer know which types you will actually be serializing. This is also true for collections of object.

You need to use the XmlSerializer(Type,Type[]) constructor to give the list of possible types.

Solution 3:

You can't serialize a collection of objects without specifying the expected types. You must pass the list of expected types to the constructor of XmlSerializer (the extraTypes parameter) :

List<object> list = new List<object>();
list.Add(new Foo());
list.Add(new Bar());

XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(object), new Type[] {typeof(Foo), typeof(Bar)});
using (StreamWriter streamWriter = System.IO.File.CreateText(fileName))
{
    xs.Serialize(streamWriter, list);
}

If all the objects of your list inherit from the same class, you can also use the XmlInclude attribute to specify the expected types :

[XmlInclude(typeof(Foo)), XmlInclude(typeof(Bar))]
public class MyBaseClass
{
}

Solution 4:

I think it's best if you use methods with generic arguments, like the following :

public static void SerializeToXml<T>(T obj, string fileName)
{
    using (var fileStream = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Create))
    { 
        var ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T)); 
        ser.Serialize(fileStream, obj);
    }
}

public static T DeserializeFromXml<T>(string xml)
{
    T result;
    var ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
    using (var tr = new StringReader(xml))
    {
        result = (T)ser.Deserialize(tr);
    }
    return result;
}

Solution 5:

I think Dreas' approach is ok. An alternative to this however is to have some static helper methods and implement IXmlSerializable on each of your methods e.g an XmlWriter extension method and the XmlReader one to read it back.

public static void SaveXmlSerialiableElement<T>(this XmlWriter writer, String elementName, T element) where T : IXmlSerializable
{
   writer.WriteStartElement(elementName);
   writer.WriteAttributeString("TYPE", element.GetType().AssemblyQualifiedName);
   element.WriteXml(writer);
   writer.WriteEndElement();
}

public static T ReadXmlSerializableElement<T>(this XmlReader reader, String elementName) where T : IXmlSerializable
{
   reader.ReadToElement(elementName);

   Type elementType = Type.GetType(reader.GetAttribute("TYPE"));
   T element = (T)Activator.CreateInstance(elementType);
   element.ReadXml(reader);
   return element;
}

If you do go down the route of using the XmlSerializer class directly, create serialization assemblies before hand if possible, as you can take a large performance hit in constructing new XmlSerializers regularly.

For a collection you need something like this:

public static void SaveXmlSerialiazbleCollection<T>(this XmlWriter writer, String collectionName, String elementName, IEnumerable<T> items) where T : IXmlSerializable
{
   writer.WriteStartElement(collectionName);
   foreach (T item in items)
   {
      writer.WriteStartElement(elementName);
      writer.WriteAttributeString("TYPE", item.GetType().AssemblyQualifiedName);
      item.WriteXml(writer);
      writer.WriteEndElement();
   }
   writer.WriteEndElement();
}