I've run into a few gotchas when doing C# XML serialization
that I thought I'd share:
You can't serialize items that are read-only (like KeyValuePairs)
You can't serialize a generic dictionary. Instead, try this wrapper class (from http://weblogs.asp.net/pwelter34/archive/2006/05/03/444961.aspx):
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
[XmlRoot("dictionary")]
public class SerializableDictionary<TKey, TValue> : Dictionary<TKey, TValue>, IXmlSerializable
{
public System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchema GetSchema()
{
return null;
}
public void ReadXml(System.Xml.XmlReader reader)
{
XmlSerializer keySerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(TKey));
XmlSerializer valueSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(TValue));
bool wasEmpty = reader.IsEmptyElement;
reader.Read();
if (wasEmpty)
return;
while (reader.NodeType != System.Xml.XmlNodeType.EndElement)
{
reader.ReadStartElement("item");
reader.ReadStartElement("key");
TKey key = (TKey)keySerializer.Deserialize(reader);
reader.ReadEndElement();
reader.ReadStartElement("value");
TValue value = (TValue)valueSerializer.Deserialize(reader);
reader.ReadEndElement();
this.Add(key, value);
reader.ReadEndElement();
reader.MoveToContent();
}
reader.ReadEndElement();
}
public void WriteXml(System.Xml.XmlWriter writer)
{
XmlSerializer keySerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(TKey));
XmlSerializer valueSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(TValue));
foreach (TKey key in this.Keys)
{
writer.WriteStartElement("item");
writer.WriteStartElement("key");
keySerializer.Serialize(writer, key);
writer.WriteEndElement();
writer.WriteStartElement("value");
TValue value = this[key];
valueSerializer.Serialize(writer, value);
writer.WriteEndElement();
writer.WriteEndElement();
}
}
}
Any other XML gotchas out there?
