inherited classes and xml.serialization

[=?Utf-8?B?SWFpbg==?=]

suppose I have

public class A
{
public List<AContents;
}

public class B: A
{
public string nameB;

}

public class C:A
{
public string nameA;

}

and I want to deserialise something like

<?xml?>
<A>
<Name>fred</Name>
<Contents>
<B>
<NameB>bert</NameB>
<Contents>
<A>
<Name>allison</Name>
</Contents>
</A>
<B>
<NameB>jim</NameB>
<Contents>..</Contents>
</Contents>
<A>

In short I want to represent a tree with polymorphic nodes.

I can do this (I think) if I accept that my nodes will read <A
xsi:type="B">, but this will be relatively unreadable. It's possible that I
can do this by overriding IXmlSerializable but I'm not sure if it will handle
deserialization with the inherited types.

I'm sure I can do this by using XmlReader and writing my own parser, but
that's not really the point of this Xml stuff, is it?

Any help or pointers much appreciated!

Iain

[Petar Atanasov]

Iain wrote:

suppose I have

public class A
{
public List<AContents;
}

public class B: A
{
public string nameB;

}

public class C:A
{
public string nameA;

}

and I want to deserialise something like

<?xml?>
<A>
<Name>fred</Name>
<Contents>
<B>
<NameB>bert</NameB>
<Contents>
<A>
<Name>allison</Name>
</Contents>
</A>
<B>
<NameB>jim</NameB>
<Contents>..</Contents>
</Contents>
<A>

In short I want to represent a tree with polymorphic nodes.

I can do this (I think) if I accept that my nodes will read <A
xsi:type="B">, but this will be relatively unreadable. It's possible that I
can do this by overriding IXmlSerializable but I'm not sure if it will handle
deserialization with the inherited types.

I'm sure I can do this by using XmlReader and writing my own parser, but
that's not really the point of this Xml stuff, is it?

Any help or pointers much appreciated!

Iain

Hi, Iain
If the inherited type is serializable, there wouldn't be problems. Well
the XmlSerializer has certain limitations, but we don't live in a
perfect world ;)

There's a pretty good article at
http://www.codeproject.com/useritems...Serializer.asp

HTH,
Petar Atanasov
http://a-wake.net

[=?Utf-8?B?SWFpbg==?=]

"Petar Atanasov" wrote:

Iain wrote:

suppose I have

public class A
{
public List<AContents;
}

public class B: A
{
public string nameB;

}

....

Thanks for your note, Petar. It turns out that the answer was (as you said)
quite straightforward. A good nights sleep and some code tests found it.

As the code above stands it does not serialise the B class as a B but as a
<B xsi:type="B">

Equally if I have a <Bin some text xml it gets ignored by the
deserialisation.

However, if I change the A class definition to

public class A
{
[XmlInclude(typeof(A))]
[XmlInclude(typeof(B))]
List<AContents;
}

public class B
{
....
}

It just plain works!

Iain

[Petar Atanasov]

Iain wrote:

>
"Petar Atanasov" wrote:

>Iain wrote:

>>suppose I have

public class A
{
public List<AContents;
}

public class B: A
{
public string nameB;

}

...

Thanks for your note, Petar. It turns out that the answer was (as you said)
quite straightforward. A good nights sleep and some code tests found it.

As the code above stands it does not serialise the B class as a B but as a
<B xsi:type="B">

Equally if I have a <Bin some text xml it gets ignored by the
deserialisation.

However, if I change the A class definition to

public class A
{
[XmlInclude(typeof(A))]
[XmlInclude(typeof(B))]
List<AContents;
}

public class B
{
...
}

It just plain works!

Iain

yeah :) good sleep always helps ;)

Regards,
Petar Atanasov
http://a-wake.net