XML Serialization and Deserialization in C#

In this article I would like to demonstrate a generic XML Serialization/Deserialization process.

There are many situations where we need to convert class objects to XML and XML to class objects in real-time projects. 

For the demonstration I have two classes named Employee and Address.

Employee 

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

 

namespace CustomSerilization

{

    public class Employee

    {

        public int ID { get; set; }

        public string Name { get; set; }

        public string Profession { get; set; }

    }

}

Address 

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

 

namespace CustomSerilization

{

    public class Address

    {

        public int HouseNo { get; set; }

        public string StreetName { get; set; }

        public string City { get; set; }

        public string Country { get; set; }

    }

}

I have created a generic Serialization/Deserilization class that performs the main activities as in the following:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Xml;

using System.Xml.Serialization;

using System.IO;

namespace CustomSerilization

{

    public class SerializeDeserialize<T>

    {

        StringBuilder sbData;

        StringWriter swWriter;

        XmlDocument xDoc;

        XmlNodeReader xNodeReader;

        XmlSerializer xmlSerializer;

        public SerializeDeserialize()

        {

            sbData = new StringBuilder();

        }

        public string SerializeData(T data)

        {

            XmlSerializer employeeSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));

            swWriter = new StringWriter(sbData);

            employeeSerializer.Serialize(swWriter, data);

            return sbData.ToString();

        }

 

        public T DeserializeData(string dataXML)

        {

             xDoc = new XmlDocument();

             xDoc.LoadXml(dataXML);

             xNodeReader = new XmlNodeReader(xDoc.DocumentElement);

             xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));

             var employeeData = xmlSerializer.Deserialize(xNodeReader);

             T deserializedEmployee = (T)employeeData;

             return deserializedEmployee;

        }

    }

}

The SerializeDeserialize class is a generic class that accepts any input.

Main Class

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using CustomSerilization;

namespace GenericSerialization

{

    class Program

    {       

        static void Main(string[] args)

        {

             //Employee Serialization/Deserialization

             Console.WriteLine("Generic Serialization/Deserialization");

             Console.WriteLine("-----Serialized Employee Data-----");

             Console.WriteLine("--------------------------------------------------------------------------------");

             SerializeDeserialize<Employee> serializeEmployee;

             Employee employee = new Employee { ID = 1001, Name = "Praveen      Raveendran", Profession = "IT Services" };

             serializeEmployee = new SerializeDeserialize<Employee>();

 

             string serializedEmployee=serializeEmployee.SerializeData(employee);

             Console.WriteLine("Serialized Employee Data : ");

             Console.WriteLine(serializedEmployee);

             Console.WriteLine("--------------------------------------------------------------------------------");

 

             Console.WriteLine("-----Deserialized Employee Data-----");

             Employee deserialiedEmployee = serializeEmployee.DeserializeData(serializedEmployee);

             Console.WriteLine("Employee ID : {0} ,  Name :{1} ,Profession : {2}", deserialiedEmployee.ID, deserialiedEmployee.Name, deserialiedEmployee.Profession);

             Console.WriteLine("--------------------------------------------------------------------------------");

 

            //Address Serialization/Deserialization

             Console.WriteLine("-----Serialized Address Data-----");

             SerializeDeserialize<Address> serilaizeAddress;

             Address address = new Address { HouseNo = 8911, StreetName = "Technopark", City = "Trivandrum", Country = "India" };

             serilaizeAddress = new SerializeDeserialize<Address>();

             string serailizedAddress = serilaizeAddress.SerializeData(address);

             Console.WriteLine("Serialized Address Data : ");

             Console.WriteLine(serailizedAddress);

             Console.WriteLine("--------------------------------------------------------------------------------");

             Console.WriteLine("-----Deserialized Address Data-----");

             Address deserialiedAddress = serilaizeAddress.DeserializeData(serailizedAddress);

             Console.WriteLine("House No :{0} , Street :{1} ,City : {2} ,Country: {3}", deserialiedAddress.HouseNo, deserialiedAddress.StreetName, deserialiedAddress.City, deserialiedAddress.Country);

             Console.WriteLine("--------------------------------------------------------------------------------");

             Console.ReadLine();

        }

    }

}

By using this generic class it is possible to perform generic XML serialization/deserialization.

Output