[c#] Serialize an object to XML

I have a C# class that I have inherited. I have successfully "built" the object. But I need to serialize the object to XML. Is there an easy way to do it?

It looks like the class has been set up for serialization, but I'm not sure how to get the XML representation. My class definition looks like this:

[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "4.0.30319.1")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType = true, Namespace = "http://www.domain.com/test")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute(Namespace = "http://www.domain.com/test", IsNullable = false)]
public partial class MyObject
{
  ...
}

Here is what I thought I could do, but it doesn't work:

MyObject o = new MyObject();
// Set o properties
string xml = o.ToString();

How do I get the XML representation of this object?

Extension class:

using System.IO;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace MyProj.Extensions
{
    public static class XmlExtension
    {
        public static string Serialize<T>(this T value)
        {
            if (value == null) return string.Empty;

            var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));

            using (var stringWriter = new StringWriter())
            {
                using (var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(stringWriter,new XmlWriterSettings{Indent = true}))
                {
                    xmlSerializer.Serialize(xmlWriter, value);
                    return stringWriter.ToString();
                }    
            }
        }
    }
}

Usage:

Foo foo = new Foo{MyProperty="I have been serialized"};

string xml = foo.Serialize();

Just reference the namespace holding your extension method in the file you would like to use it in and it'll work (in my example it would be: using MyProj.Extensions;)

Note that if you want to make the extension method specific to only a particular class(eg., Foo), you can replace the T argument in the extension method, eg.

public static string Serialize(this Foo value){...}

Here is a good tutorial on how to do this

You should basically use System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer class to do this.

The following function can be copied to any object to add an XML save function using the System.Xml namespace.

/// <summary>
/// Saves to an xml file
/// </summary>
/// <param name="FileName">File path of the new xml file</param>
public void Save(string FileName)
{
    using (var writer = new System.IO.StreamWriter(FileName))
    {
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(this.GetType());
        serializer.Serialize(writer, this);
        writer.Flush();
    }
}

To create the object from the saved file, add the following function and replace [ObjectType] with the object type to be created.

/// <summary>
/// Load an object from an xml file
/// </summary>
/// <param name="FileName">Xml file name</param>
/// <returns>The object created from the xml file</returns>
public static [ObjectType] Load(string FileName)
{
    using (var stream = System.IO.File.OpenRead(FileName))
    {
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof([ObjectType]));
        return serializer.Deserialize(stream) as [ObjectType];
    }
}

I modified mine to return a string rather than use a ref variable like below.

public static string Serialize<T>(this T value)
{
    if (value == null)
    {
        return string.Empty;
    }
    try
    {
        var xmlserializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
        var stringWriter = new StringWriter();
        using (var writer = XmlWriter.Create(stringWriter))
        {
            xmlserializer.Serialize(writer, value);
            return stringWriter.ToString();
        }
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        throw new Exception("An error occurred", ex);
    }
}

Its usage would be like this:

var xmlString = obj.Serialize();

my work code. Returns utf8 xml enable empty namespace.

// override StringWriter
public class Utf8StringWriter : StringWriter
{
    public override Encoding Encoding => Encoding.UTF8;
}

private string GenerateXmlResponse(Object obj)
{    
    Type t = obj.GetType();

    var xml = "";

    using (StringWriter sww = new Utf8StringWriter())
    {
        using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(sww))
        {
            var ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
            // add empty namespace
            ns.Add("", "");
            XmlSerializer xsSubmit = new XmlSerializer(t);
            xsSubmit.Serialize(writer, obj, ns);
            xml = sww.ToString(); // Your XML
        }
    }
    return xml;
}

Example returns response Yandex api payment Aviso url:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><paymentAvisoResponse xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" performedDatetime="2017-09-01T16:22:08.9747654+07:00" code="0" shopId="54321" invoiceId="12345" orderSumAmount="10643" />

    string FilePath = ConfigurationReader.FileLocation;   //Getting path value from web.config            
    XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Devices)); //typeof(object)
            MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();
            serializer.Serialize(memStream, lstDevices);//lstdevices : I take result as a list.
            FileStream file = new FileStream(folderName + "\\Data.xml", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite); //foldername:Specify the path to store the xml file
            memStream.WriteTo(file);
            file.Close();

You can create and store the result as xml file in the desired location.

Here's a basic code that will help serializing the C# objects into xml:

using System;

public class clsPerson
{
  public  string FirstName;
  public  string MI;
  public  string LastName;
}

class class1
{ 
   static void Main(string[] args)
   {
      clsPerson p=new clsPerson();
      p.FirstName = "Jeff";
      p.MI = "A";
      p.LastName = "Price";
      System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer x = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(p.GetType());
      x.Serialize(Console.Out, p);
      Console.WriteLine();
      Console.ReadLine();
   }
}    

Based on above solutions, here comes a extension class which you can use to serialize and deserialize any object. Any other XML attributions are up to you.

Just use it like this:

        string s = new MyObject().Serialize(); // to serialize into a string
        MyObject b = s.Deserialize<MyObject>();// deserialize from a string



internal static class Extensions
{
    public static T Deserialize<T>(this string value)
    {
        var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));

        return (T)xmlSerializer.Deserialize(new StringReader(value));
    }

    public static string Serialize<T>(this T value)
    {
        if (value == null)
            return string.Empty;

        var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));

        using (var stringWriter = new StringWriter())
        {
            using (var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(stringWriter, new XmlWriterSettings { Indent = true }))
            {
                xmlSerializer.Serialize(xmlWriter, value);
                return stringWriter.ToString();
            }
        }
    }
}

You can use the function like below to get serialized XML from any object.

public static bool Serialize<T>(T value, ref string serializeXml)
{
    if (value == null)
    {
        return false;
    }
    try
    {
        XmlSerializer xmlserializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
        StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();
        XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(stringWriter);

        xmlserializer.Serialize(writer, value);

        serializeXml = stringWriter.ToString();

        writer.Close();
        return true;
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        return false;
    }
}

You can call this from the client.

Or you can add this method to your object:

    public void Save(string filename)
    {
        var ser = new XmlSerializer(this.GetType());
        using (var stream = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Create))
            ser.Serialize(stream, this);
    }

public string ObjectToXML(object input)
{
    try
    {
        var stringwriter = new System.IO.StringWriter();
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(input.GetType());
        serializer.Serialize(stringwriter, input);
        return stringwriter.ToString();
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        if (ex.InnerException != null)
            ex = ex.InnerException;

        return "Could not convert: " + ex.Message;
    }
}

//Usage
var res = ObjectToXML(obj)

You need to use following classes:

using System.IO;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

It's a little bit more complicated than calling the ToString method of the class, but not much.

Here's a simple drop-in function you can use to serialize any type of object. It returns a string containing the serialized XML contents:

public string SerializeObject(object obj)
{
    System.Xml.XmlDocument xmlDoc = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();
    System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer serializer = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(obj.GetType());
    using (System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream()) {
        serializer.Serialize(ms, obj);
        ms.Position = 0;
        xmlDoc.Load(ms);
        return xmlDoc.InnerXml;
    }
}

I have a simple way to serialize an object to XML using C#, it works great and it's highly reusable. I know this is an older thread, but I wanted to post this because someone may find this helpful to them.

Here is how I call the method:

var objectToSerialize = new MyObject();
var xmlString = objectToSerialize.ToXmlString();

Here is the class that does the work:

Note: Since these are extension methods they need to be in a static class.

using System.IO;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

public static class XmlTools
{
    public static string ToXmlString<T>(this T input)
    {
        using (var writer = new StringWriter())
        {
            input.ToXml(writer);
            return writer.ToString();
        }
    }

    private static void ToXml<T>(this T objectToSerialize, StringWriter writer)
    {
        new XmlSerializer(typeof(T)).Serialize(writer, objectToSerialize);
    }
}

I will start with the copy answer of Ben Gripka:

public void Save(string FileName)
{
    using (var writer = new System.IO.StreamWriter(FileName))
    {
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(this.GetType());
        serializer.Serialize(writer, this);
        writer.Flush();
    }
}

I used this code earlier. But reality showed that this solution is a bit problematic. Usually most of programmers just serialize setting on save and deserialize settings on load. This is an optimistic scenario. Once the serialization failed, because of some reason, the file is partly written, XML file is not complete and it is invalid. In consequence XML deserialization does not work and your application may crash on start. If the file is not huge, I suggest first serialize object to MemoryStream then write the stream to the File. This case is especially important if there is some complicated custom serialization. You can never test all cases.

public void Save(string fileName)
{
    //first serialize the object to memory stream,
    //in case of exception, the original file is not corrupted
    using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
    {
        var writer = new System.IO.StreamWriter(ms);    
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(this.GetType());
        serializer.Serialize(writer, this);
        writer.Flush();

        //if the serialization succeed, rewrite the file.
        File.WriteAllBytes(fileName, ms.ToArray());
    }
}

The deserialization in real world scenario should count with corrupted serialization file, it happens sometime. Load function provided by Ben Gripka is fine.

public static [ObjectType] Load(string fileName)
{
    using (var stream = System.IO.File.OpenRead(fileName))
    {
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof([ObjectType]));
        return serializer.Deserialize(stream) as [ObjectType];        
    }    
}

And it could be wrapped by some recovery scenario. It is suitable for settings files or other files which can be deleted in case of problems.

public static [ObjectType] LoadWithRecovery(string fileName)
{
    try
    {
        return Load(fileName);
    }
    catch(Excetion)
    {
        File.Delete(fileName); //delete corrupted settings file
        return GetFactorySettings();
    }
}

To serialize an object, do:

 using (StreamWriter myWriter = new StreamWriter(path, false))
 {
     XmlSerializer mySerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(your_object_type));
     mySerializer.Serialize(myWriter, objectToSerialize);
 }

Also remember that for XmlSerializer to work, you need a parameterless constructor.

All upvoted answers above are correct. This is just simplest version:

private string Serialize(Object o)
{
    using (var writer = new StringWriter())
    {
        new XmlSerializer(o.GetType()).Serialize(writer, o);
        return writer.ToString();
    }
}