Introducing XML Serialization

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

  Note

  Only collections are serialized, not public properties.

• XmlElement objects

• XmlNode objects

• DataSet objects

example code for ICollection:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

public class Test{
    static void Main(){
        Test t = new Test();
        t.SerializeCollection("coll.xml");
    }

    private void SerializeCollection(string filename){
        Employees Emps = new Employees();
        // Note that only the collection is serialized -- not the 
        // CollectionName or any other public property of the class.
        Emps.CollectionName = "Employees";
        Employee John100 = new Employee("John", "100xxx");
        Emps.Add(John100);
        XmlSerializer x = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Employees));
        TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(filename);
        x.Serialize(writer, Emps);
    }
}
public class Employees:ICollection{
    public string CollectionName;
    private ArrayList empArray = new ArrayList(); 

    public Employee this[int index]{
        get{return (Employee) empArray[index];}
    }
    
    public void CopyTo(Array a, int index){
        empArray.CopyTo(a, index);
    }
    public int Count{
        get{return empArray.Count;}
    }
    public object SyncRoot{
        get{return this;}
    }
    public bool IsSynchronized{
        get{return false;}
    }
    public IEnumerator GetEnumerator(){
        return empArray.GetEnumerator();
    }

    public void Add(Employee newEmployee){
        empArray.Add(newEmployee);
    }
}

public class Employee{
    public string EmpName;
    public string EmpID;
    public Employee(){}
    public Employee(string empName, string empID){
        EmpName = empName;
        EmpID = empID;
    }
}

the serialization xml looks like :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ArrayOfEmployee xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Employee>
    <EmpName>John</EmpName>
    <EmpID>100xxx</EmpID>
  </Employee>
</ArrayOfEmployee>

DataSet XML Serialization Example:

private void SerializeDataSet(string filename){
    XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(DataSet));
        
    // Creates a DataSet; adds a table, column, and ten rows.
    DataSet ds = new DataSet("myDataSet");
    DataTable t = new DataTable("table1");
    DataColumn c = new DataColumn("thing");
    t.Columns.Add(c);
    ds.Tables.Add(t);
    DataRow r;
    for(int i = 0; i<10;i++){
        r = t.NewRow();
        r[0] = "Thing " + i;
        t.Rows.Add(r);
    }
    TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(filename);
    ser.Serialize(writer, ds);
    writer.Close();
}

XMLElement or XMLNode Xml Serialization code Example:

private void SerializeElement(string filename){
    XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(XmlElement));
    XmlElement myElement= 
    new XmlDocument().CreateElement("MyElement", "ns");
    myElement.InnerText = "Hello World";
    TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(filename);
    ser.Serialize(writer, myElement);
    writer.Close();
}

private void SerializeNode(string filename){
    XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(XmlNode));
    XmlNode myNode= new XmlDocument().
    CreateNode(XmlNodeType.Element, "MyNode", "ns");
    myNode.InnerText = "Hello Node";
    TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(filename);
    ser.Serialize(writer, myNode);
    writer.Close();
}

 you also can control the xml serialization by attribute. and the attributes which can control the xml serialization.