Serializing heterogeneous lists to/from XML?

[martin.zarate]

I'm working on a simple command-line app. The app takes an XML file
that provides the operations to perform. However, the problem I'm
running in to is that the file must contain a seperate array for each
class of operations it supports, even though all operations implement
the same execution interface (IModule implements Execute and
PostProcess), but have wildly different configuration members.

Because each module is very different to configure, but the same at
execution, the usual approach of copying the members from a stubbed-out
base class is inappropriate. Is there any way to unify their
serialized lists into a single list? Or do the XML lists have to be
homogeneous?

And as an aside, is there a text-based serialization system that is
less verbose than XML? Like a YAML serializer or something?

Thanks in advance,

-- Martin

[Adam Calderon]

Hello ma***********@g mail.com,

If the issue is combining/uncombining then maybe you could use an XSLT template
to combine going out and break apart coming back in. This could be achieved
by using some custom code. Another thing that might work is using customer
serialization. This link is to Custom Serialization in the SDK http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ty01x675.aspx.

Adam Calderon [C# MVP]
http://blogs.interknowlogy.com/adamcalderon

I'm working on a simple command-line app. The app takes an XML file
that provides the operations to perform. However, the problem I'm
running in to is that the file must contain a seperate array for each
class of operations it supports, even though all operations implement
the same execution interface (IModule implements Execute and
PostProcess), but have wildly different configuration members.

Because each module is very different to configure, but the same at
execution, the usual approach of copying the members from a
stubbed-out base class is inappropriate. Is there any way to unify
their serialized lists into a single list? Or do the XML lists have
to be homogeneous?

And as an aside, is there a text-based serialization system that is
less verbose than XML? Like a YAML serializer or something?

Thanks in advance,