Question

I try to write a XML<>Object Mapper for my Entity Framework Code First class. Because EF doesn’t support this automatic XML Serialization at the moment I did this to access the “Profile” object property and manipulate the underlying ProfileData string:

[Column(TypeName = "xml")]
public string ProfileData { get; set; }

[NotMapped]
public Profile Profile
{
    get { return ProfileData.DeserializeXml<Profile>(); }
    set { ProfileData = value.SerializeXml(); }
}

Everything works fine but ProfileData.DeserializeXml() returns (of course) a new object, serialized from the ProfileData string. I think the extension method isn’t relevant for my question but I post it anyway:

public static T DeserializeXml<T>(this string xml) where T : class, new()
{
    if(string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(xml)) return new T();
    var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
    using (var reader = new StringReader(xml))
    {
        try { return (T)serializer.Deserialize(reader); }
        catch { return null; } 
    }
}

When I want to change my object I do this:

var profile = myObject.Profile;
profile.fooVar = "test";

But this will not affect my myObject until I do this:

myObject.Profile = profile;

I know why but I don’t want to do this, I want a… let us say “direct reference” to the underlying ProfileData string with my object wrapper.

Any idea to archive this or is not possible?

Answer 1

Why doesn’t your class keep a reference to the Profile object instead, and only serialize or deserialize when requested? In other words, change it to:

[Column(TypeName = "xml")]
public string ProfileData
{ 
    get { return Profile.SerializeXml(); }
    set { Profile = value.DeserializeXml<Profile>(); }
}

[NotMapped]
public Profile Profile { get; set; }