Question

XmlSerializer and Deserialize

Asked by: yaron89

In my winform app. I am serializing severl types of objects to XML.
I have to desrialize the XML to the original object type.
How can I get the original type of the object from the XML?

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Asked On
2009-11-04 at 01:05:43ID24870154
Topic

Microsoft Visual C#.Net

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
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Answers

 

by: jaime_olivaresPosted on 2009-11-04 at 02:36:45ID: 25737974

basically you cannot, unless you serialize some kind of schema along with your object.
most class members are serialized as strings so there is no clue if they were strings or numerical.

 

by: Mahmoud_Al_HattabPosted on 2009-11-04 at 02:49:57ID: 25738028

check the code down:
Actually I am not sure about what you want exactly. This code serializes and deserializes the object of type AAA. I have added the member TTT into AAA to save the type into it. So you can check it from the XML file.
Th code shows the type. I hope this answers what you want. If you need anything else please let me know.

Notice that serializables should be public; class and members.

[Serializable]
public class AAA
{
   public AAA()
   {
      TTT = GetType().ToString();
   } 
   public AAA(int a) : this()
   {
      A = a;
   } 
   public string TTT; 
   public int A = 10;
} 
class Test
{
   static void Main(string[] args)
   {
      string file = @"C:\aaa.txt";
      XmlSerializer s = new XmlSerializer(typeof(AAA));
      TextWriter tw = new StreamWriter(file);
      s.Serialize(tw, new AAA(123));
      tw.Close();
      TextReader tr = new StreamReader(file);
      object obj = s.Deserialize(tr);
      Console.WriteLine(obj.GetType().ToString());
      //AAA aaa = (AAA)s.Deserialize(tr);
   }
}

                                              
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by: Mahmoud_Al_HattabPosted on 2009-11-04 at 02:52:01ID: 25738039

you can make the typeof(obj) where obj is the read from the deserialize. Then make a switch statement or if statement to perform the appropriate action for each type.

 

by: yaron89Posted on 2009-11-04 at 03:32:54ID: 25738256

Hi   Mahmoud
In your code, where do you check the XML  TTT member in order to get the original object type?

Thanks


 

 

by: jaime_olivaresPosted on 2009-11-04 at 03:45:49ID: 25738331

About how to serialize the schema:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/XML/Serialization.aspx

 

by: ragi0017Posted on 2009-11-04 at 04:00:30ID: 25738427

one more sample for how to achieve object serialization & de-serialization using c#
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/objserial.aspx

normally when the object is being deserialized the Interface how the object has to be deserialzied has to be exposed

 

by: Mahmoud_Al_HattabPosted on 2009-11-04 at 05:28:56ID: 25739031

Hi Yaron,
Well, at run time you can use the typeof. Do you mean that you want to check the xml before deserializing?
OK, why? Load it into object then check thru the typeof or the TTT member.
Anyways, you can read the xml stream using the XmlReader classes as follows:

string file = @"C:\aaa.txt";
            XmlReader xmlr = XmlReader.Create(file);
            xmlr.ReadToFollowing("TTT");
            Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", xmlr.Name, xmlr.ReadString());
            xmlr.Close();

                                              
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by: yaron89Posted on 2009-11-04 at 05:33:06ID: 31649879

Thank you.

 

by: Mahmoud_Al_HattabPosted on 2009-11-04 at 05:45:57ID: 25739195

You are more than welcome :) Thanks for you too.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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