Generic methods for xml serialization

Serialization XML

 

       public static string Serialize<T>(T param) where T:class

        {

            try

            {

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

                StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();

                XmlSerializerNamespaces ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();

                ns.Add("", "");

                ser.Serialize(sw, param, ns);

                return sw.ToString();

            }

            catch

            {

                return string.Empty;

            }

        }

 

Deserialization XML

 

        public static T Deserialize<T>(string xml) where T : class

        {

            MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xml));

            try

            {

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

                StreamReader sw = new StreamReader(stream);

                var dto = (T)ser.Deserialize(sw);

                return dto;

            }

            catch

            {

                return null;

            }

            finally

            {

                stream.Flush();

                stream.Dispose();

            }

        }

Ignore property to be serialized in xml serializer

Conditionaly ignore any property to be serialized in xml using XML serializer. You can achieve it using ShouldSerialize{Property Name} method. E.g

 

        public string PropertyName { get; set; }

        public bool ShouldSerialize PropertyName ()

        {

    // Condition for property which return true/false

               return !string.IsNullOrEmpty(PropertyName); 

        }

 

 

 

Serializable class :

 

[XmlRoot("TestXML")]

    public class Testxml

    {

        [XmlElement]

        public int Id { get; set; }

 

        [XmlElement]

        public string Name { get; set; }

 

        [XmlElement]

        public string City { get; set; }

        public bool ShouldSerializeCity()

        {

            return !string.IsNullOrEmpty(City);

        }

    }

 

Method to serialize :

 

Testxml xml = new Testxml();

xml.Id= 10;

xml.Name = "Ajay";

xml.City = "";

XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Testxml));

StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();

ser.Serialize(sw, xml);

 

Results :

 

When  xml.City = "Kalol"; Then XML looks like below :

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16" ?>

<testxml xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

    <id>10</id>

    <name>Ajay</name>

    <city>Kalol</city>

</testxml>

 

When  xml.City = ""; Then XML looks like below :

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16" ?>

<testxml xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

    <id>10</id>

    <name>Ajay</name>

</testxml>