Hi, is it possible to use the XmlSerializer in .NET to load an XML file which includes other XML files? And how?
This, in order to share XML state easily in two "
parent" XML files, e.g. AB and BC in below.
Example:
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
namespace XmlSerializerMultipleFilesTest
{
[Serializable]
public class A
{
public int Value
{ get; set; }
}
[Serializable]
public class B
{
public double Value
{ get; set; }
}
[Serializable]
public class C
{
public string Value
{ get; set; }
}
[Serializable]
public class AB
{
public A A
{ get; set; }
public B B
{ get; set; }
}
[Serializable]
public class BC
{
public B B
{ get; set; }
public C C
{ get; set; }
}
class Program
{
public static void Serialize<T>(T data, string filePath)
{
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(filePath))
{
var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
xmlSerializer.Serialize(writer, data);
}
}
public static T Deserialize<T>(string filePath)
{
using (var reader = new StreamReader(filePath))
{
var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
return (T)xmlSerializer.Deserialize(reader);
}
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
const string fileNameA = @"A.xml";
const string fileNameB = @"B.xml";
const string fileNameC = @"C.xml";
const string fileNameAB = @"AB.xml";
const string fileNameBC = @"BC.xml";
var a = new A(){ Value = 42 };
var b = new B(){ Value = Math.PI };
var c = new C(){ Value = "Something rotten" };
Serialize(a, fileNameA);
Serialize(b, fileNameB);
Serialize(c, fileNameC);
// How can AB and BC be deserialized from single
// files which include two of the A, B or C files.
// Using ideally something like:
var ab = Deserialize<AB>(fileNameAB);
var bc = Deserialize<BC>(fileNameBC);
// That is, so that A, B, C xml file
// contents are shared across these two
}
}
}
Thus, the A, B, C files contain the following:
A.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<A xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Value>42</Value>
</A>
B.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<B xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Value>3.1415926535897931</Value>
</B>
C.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<C xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Value>Something rotten</Value>
</C>
And then the "
parent" XML files would contain a XML include file of some sort (I have not been able to find anything like this), such as:
AB.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<AB xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<A include="A.xml"/>
<B include="B.xml"/>
</AB>
BC.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<BC xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<B include="B.xml"/>
<C include="C.xml"/>
</BC>
Of course, I guess this can be solved by implementing IXmlSerializer for AB and BC, but I was hoping there was an easier solution or a generic solution with which classes themselves only need the [Serializable] attribute and nothing else. That is, the split into multiple files is XML only and handled by XmlSerializer itself or a custom generic serializer on top of this.
I know this should be somewhat possible with app.config (as in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/480538/use-xml-includes-or-config-references-in-app-config-to-include-other-config-files), but I would prefer a solution based on XmlSerializer.
Thanks.
