使用LINQ将CLR对象写入XML

Question

I have an ObservableCollection items. I want to convert these to XML format so that I can store them for later use. I'm a little new to LINQ and I'm not sure how to do this. I know that I need to rely on the XDocument. But I'm not sure how to execute the query and get the results into a string format.

Can somebody please provide some pointers for me? It just seems like such an easy task, I'd be surprised if it couldn't be done.

Thank you,

Answer 1

You need Linq to XML . I can't post a real code here since I don't know the structure of your data, but here's a dummy example:

List<Person> people = ...

var doc = new XDocument(
            new XElement("People",
                from p in people
                select new XElement("Person",
                    new XAttribute("Id", p.Id),
                    new XElement("LastName", p.LastName),
                    new XElement("FistName", p.FirstName))));

doc.Save("people.xml");

Note that Linq is not the only option here. Another very good approach is XML serialization.

Answer 2

Using the DataContractSerializer is your best bet. It's designed to do exactly what you are asking for.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.runtime.serialization.datacontractserializer(v=VS.95).aspx

Advantages over XMLSerializer:

1. Opt-in rather than opt-out properties to serialize. This mean you specify what you want serialize

2. Because it is opt in you can serialize not only properties, but also fields. You can even serialize non-public members such as private or protected members. And you dont need a set on a property either (however without a setter you can serialize, but not deserialize)

3. Is about 10% faster than XmlSerializer to serialize the data because since you don't have full control over how it is serialize, there is a lot that can be done to optimize the serialization/deserialization process.

4. Can understand the SerializableAttribute and know that it needs to be serialized

5. More options and control over KnownTypes

Disadvantages:

1. No control over how the object is serialized outside of setting the name and the order

Answer 3

I'm not sure what you want. You can create a XElement and convert it to a string with the ToString method. You can do the same with XDocument.

Answer 4

I'm not at all familiar with Silverlight, but it sounds like you are going to need to use XML serialization. XML serialization allows you to serialize an object into an XML representation, which you can then later deserialize from XML back into an object.

Here are some tutorials and information on XML serialization in .NET:

• XML Serialization
• XML Serialization Using C#
• XmlSerializer class