Question

I can serialize a list really easy:

List<String> fieldsToNotCopy =new List<String> {"Iteration Path","Iteration ID"};
fieldsToNotCopy.SerializeObject("FieldsToNotMove.xml");

Now I need a method like this:

List<String> loadedList = new List<String();
loadedList.DeserializeObject("FieldsToNotMove.xml");

Is there such a method? Or am I going to need to create an XML reader and load it in that way?

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EDIT: Turns out there is no built in SerialzeObject. I had made one earlier in my project and forgot about it. When I found it I thought it was built in. In case you are curious this is the SerializeObject that I made:

// Save an object out to the disk
public static void SerializeObject<T>(this T toSerialize, String filename)
{
   XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(toSerialize.GetType());
   TextWriter textWriter = new StreamWriter(filename);

   xmlSerializer.Serialize(textWriter, toSerialize);
   textWriter.Close();
}

Answer 1

There is no such builtin method as SerializeObject but it’s not terribly difficult to code one up.

public void SerializeObject(this List<string> list, string fileName) {
  var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<string>));
  using ( var stream = File.OpenWrite(fileName)) {
    serializer.Serialize(stream, list);
  }
}

And Deserialize

public void Deserialize(this List<string> list, string fileName) {
  var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<string>));
  using ( var stream = File.OpenRead(fileName) ){
    var other = (List<string>)(serializer.Deserialize(stream));
    list.Clear();
    list.AddRange(other);
  }
}