XmlSerializer for single level serialization of objects ?

[cwertman]

Ok the XmlSerializer is nice for my need.

BUT I what I need (maybe the XmlSerializer isnt what I need) is to be
able to take the following
objects

A Person who has a collection of Addresses

Person
(fname)
(lname)
Address
(Street)
(City)
(State)
(Zip)

And Serialize the Person object Seperatly from the Addresses.

What is the best way to do this ?

Inverse recursion ?

What I would like in the end are 2 strings, 1 representing the Person
and 1 representing the address.

If there were 2 addresses then 3 strings, 1 for the person, and 1 for
EACH address.

Thanks

Chris

[Andrew Brook]

Hi Chris,

Could you just mark the address property of the Person object to be ignored
by the serializer (XmlIgnore i think). Serialise the Person to get your
first string, then iterate over the addresses and serialize them one by one?

ta,
Andrew

<cw******@gmail.comwrote in message
news:11**********************@16g2000cwy.googlegro ups.com...

Ok the XmlSerializer is nice for my need.

BUT I what I need (maybe the XmlSerializer isnt what I need) is to be
able to take the following
objects

A Person who has a collection of Addresses

Person
(fname)
(lname)
Address
(Street)
(City)
(State)
(Zip)

And Serialize the Person object Seperatly from the Addresses.

What is the best way to do this ?

Inverse recursion ?

What I would like in the end are 2 strings, 1 representing the Person
and 1 representing the address.

If there were 2 addresses then 3 strings, 1 for the person, and 1 for
EACH address.

Thanks

Chris

[cwertman]

Hmm....thats a way...not bad.....

What I would really like to do is be able through reflection determine
if a property base type implments IEnumerable.

I have an app that I have several functions I need to determine if a
given propety is a a type of Collection

It could (and in most cases is) a Generic Collection

It could be , and array , an array list , etc though.

How can I determine if its A collection, or enumerable ?

I hate to impose contratints like that on Domain Design that all
collections must be ignored....etc.

BUT its better than what I had so far.

If I could just figure out how to determine if a property implments
IEnum, etc...

Thanks

Chris

Andrew Brook wrote:

Hi Chris,

Could you just mark the address property of the Person object to be ignored
by the serializer (XmlIgnore i think). Serialise the Person to get your
first string, then iterate over the addresses and serialize them one by one?

ta,
Andrew

<cw******@gmail.comwrote in message
news:11**********************@16g2000cwy.googlegro ups.com...

Ok the XmlSerializer is nice for my need.

BUT I what I need (maybe the XmlSerializer isnt what I need) is to be
able to take the following
objects

A Person who has a collection of Addresses

Person
(fname)
(lname)
Address
(Street)
(City)
(State)
(Zip)

And Serialize the Person object Seperatly from the Addresses.

What is the best way to do this ?

Inverse recursion ?

What I would like in the end are 2 strings, 1 representing the Person
and 1 representing the address.

If there were 2 addresses then 3 strings, 1 for the person, and 1 for
EACH address.

Thanks

Chris

[Keith Patrick]

System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("Addresses is " +
(typeof(IEnumerable).IsAssignableFrom(myObject.Get Type().GetProperty("Addresses").PropertyType)
? String.Empty : "not ") + "IEnumerable");

That should determine if your property is IEnumerable, although since
ICollection is derived from IEnumerable, it'd be better to check for
ICollection if you want to exclude them. But this is not behavior you can
dictate to the serializer (unless you can get it to fire the UnknownElement
event)

[cwertman]

BINGO !

Thanks a TON !

It was driving me nuts, I was calling TypeOf differently and missing
the IsAssignableFrom

So NOW I can loop through my properties

You are 100% correct about the ICollection (I want thinking of the fact
ICollection is derived from IEnumerable)

What I plan to do as far as the serializer goes is loop from the Bottom
Up setting the collections to nothign after they have been individually
serialized. That Ive got ok, its not clean but it works.
Thanks again......


Keith Patrick wrote:

System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("Addresses is " +
(typeof(IEnumerable).IsAssignableFrom(myObject.Get Type().GetProperty("Addresses").PropertyType)
? String.Empty : "not ") + "IEnumerable");

That should determine if your property is IEnumerable, although since
ICollection is derived from IEnumerable, it'd be better to check for
ICollection if you want to exclude them. But this is not behavior you can
dictate to the serializer (unless you can get it to fire the UnknownElement
event)