Serialize Class obtained using Reflection to XML

Question

I have a file that looks like the following:

public abstract class TestStep
{
   public abstract bool DoWork();
   public abstract List<TestStep> PrerequisiteSteps { get; set; }
   public abstract string DisplayForm { get; }
}

class TestFunctions
{
   public class A : TestStep
   {
      public override string DisplayForm { get { return "MainForm; } }
      // remaining implementation goes here...
   }
   public class B : TestStep { // some implementation }
   public class C : TestStep { // some implementation }
   public static void NextStep() { }
}

I'd like to serialize the classes A , B , and C to an XML file. I can manually add instances of these classes to a List<TestStep> object and pass that to an XML serializer, but I'd like to programmatically accomplish this because I might add or remove classes in TestFunctions in the future. As a result, I've found that I can use reflection to get an array of the functions:

Type type = (typeof(TestEngineFunctions));
Type[] testEngineFunctions = type.GetNestedTypes(BindingFlags.Public);

However I'm not sure how to proceed from here. I have access to the name of the functions, I can get their properties as well, but ultimately I don't have an actual object to serialize.
Am I on the right track or is there another method better suited for this?

Answer 1

You can get a new instance of the objects like this:

ObjectType instance = (ObjectType)Activator.CreateInstance(objectType);

Since you may not know the ObjectType before run time you could use the dynamic type and don't cast:

dynamic instance = Activator.CreateInstance(objectType);

However, if you attempt to serialize right after you instantiate you'll just get the default values of the object in your XML.