C#•2y ago

❔ Is there an easy way to serialize a Dictionary<string, string> to XML nodes?

I'm writing a program that has to produce the following XML:

<Attributes>
    <Color>red</Color>
    <Size>small</Size>
    <Material>plastic</Material>
</Attributes>

<Attributes>
    <Color>red</Color>
    <Size>small</Size>
    <Material>plastic</Material>
</Attributes>

I'm trying to figure out the best data model that can be serialized to something like this. The most obvious choice seems to be a Dictionary<string, string>, but I can also use a custom class with two properties (Name, Value). I've seen some solutions on stack overflow, but all of them involve creating a bunch of helper classes and writing hundreds of lines of additional code, and I refuse to believe that there is no simpler way of doing this, with Xml attributes or something like that.

5 Replies

Angius•2y ago

Generally speaking, XML is a bitch Surprisingly so, seeing how fond of it Microsoft is

Sparky•2y ago

Oh yeah. I'm currently trying to write a IXmlSerializable to see if I can get it to work.. Yeah, I think I solved it.

public class MyAttribute : IXmlSerializable { 
    
    public string Key { get; set; }
    public string Value { get; set; }

    public XmlSchema GetSchema() => null;

    public void WriteXml(XmlWriter writer)
    {
        writer.WriteElementString(Key, null, Value);
    }
    
    public void ReadXml(XmlReader reader)
    {
    }
}

public class MyAttribute : IXmlSerializable { 
    
    public string Key { get; set; }
    public string Value { get; set; }

    public XmlSchema GetSchema() => null;

    public void WriteXml(XmlWriter writer)
    {
        writer.WriteElementString(Key, null, Value);
    }
    
    public void ReadXml(XmlReader reader)
    {
    }
}

Angius•2y ago

Jesus, the more I read about XML serialization the more I hate it Why does the serializer use typeof instead of being generic? Why does it insert data into a stream? Who designed this shit...? That said... this works

var s = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Root));
s.Serialize(Console.Out, new Root
{
    Attributes = new Attributes
    {
        Color = "red",
        Size = "small",
        Material = "denim"
    }
});

public class Root
{
    public Attributes Attributes { get; set; }
}

public class Attributes
{
    public string Color { get; set; }
    public string Size { get; set; }
    public string Material { get; set; }
}

var s = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Root));
s.Serialize(Console.Out, new Root
{
    Attributes = new Attributes
    {
        Color = "red",
        Size = "small",
        Material = "denim"
    }
});

public class Root
{
    public Attributes Attributes { get; set; }
}

public class Attributes
{
    public string Color { get; set; }
    public string Size { get; set; }
    public string Material { get; set; }
}

Angius•2y ago

Kinda

Accord•2y ago

Was this issue resolved? If so, run /close - otherwise I will mark this as stale and this post will be archived until there is new activity.

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❔ Is there an easy way to serialize a Dictionary<string, string> to XML nodes?