Serialize list of classes c# into a csv file

Question

I have the followings:

Class Pet

public string PetType {get; set;}
public string PetName {get; set;}
public int PetAge {get; set;}

Class Person

public string Name {get; set;}
public int Age {get; set;}
public List<Pet> ListOfPets {get; set;}

Class ViewModel

public ObservableCollection<Person> People {get; set;}

I wish to serialize the People object into a csv file.

Can such task be achieved?

I found a CSV Serializer which can only handle strings.

Answer 1

A csv-file is two-dimensional, you cannot include a third dimension (the pets). You could manually append the pets one by one but you will loose the fixed column count of the csv file

Like this

[Name],[Age],[Pet1Type][Pet1Name],[Pet1Age],[Pet2Type][Pet2Name],[Pet2Age]
[Name],[Age],[Pet1Type][Pet1Name],[Pet1Age]
[Name],[Age],[Pet1Type][Pet1Name],[Pet1Age],[Pet2Type][Pet2Name],[Pet2Age,[Pet3Type][Pet3Name],[Pet3Age]

But it will be harder to consume afterwards.

Answer 2

After the edit it is clear OP is interested in serializing in CSV format so i can suggest to try out CsvMapper .

var csv = new CsvWriter( textWriter );
csv.WriteRecords( list );