Question

A few days back I had to de-serialize data from xml file to my List class.
my approach was like this:

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
    doc.Load("Test.xml");
    XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(UserHolder));
    UserHolder uh = (UserHolder)xs.Deserialize(new StringReader(doc.OuterXml));
    dataGridView1.DataSource = uh.Users.ToDataTable();
}
public class User
{
    [XmlElement("id")]
    public Int32 Id { get; set; }

    [XmlElement("name")]
    public String Name { get; set; }
}

[XmlRoot("user_list")]
public class UserHolder
{
    private List<User> users = null;

    public UserHolder()
    {
        users = new List<User>(); 
    }

    [XmlElement("user")]
    public List<User> Users
    {
        get { return users; }
        set { users = value; }
    }
}

public static class Convert2Table
{
    public static DataTable ToDataTable<T>(this IList<T> list)
    {
        PropertyDescriptorCollection props = TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(typeof(T));
        DataTable table = new DataTable();
        for (int i = 0; i < props.Count; i++)
        {
            PropertyDescriptor prop = props[i];
            table.Columns.Add(prop.Name, Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(prop.PropertyType) ?? prop.PropertyType);
        }
        object[] values = new object[props.Count];
        foreach (T item in list)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < values.Length; i++)
                values[i] = props[i].GetValue(item) ?? DBNull.Value;
            table.Rows.Add(values);
        }
        return table;
    }
}

The code above works fine, but I had to write many lines of code.

I now have a new situation where I have a customer class and one datatable. My datatable is populated with multiple customers data. I want to deserialize that data from datatable to my customer class. How can I do that more efficiently than I did before? I doubt linq will help me. So please guide me for deserialize datatable data to my customer class List.

Answer 1

Like this:

DataTable dt .... 


List<Customer>  customers = (from c in dt.AsEnumerable()
                select new Customer { ID = c.Field<int>("CustomerID"), 
                Name=c.Field<string>("CustomerName")  }).ToList();

And so on for all the properties of Customer