Question

I would like to be able to serialize a generic type against several different entities using the C# XmlSerializer. For example i want to serialize:

GenericThing<MyApp.A> and GenericThing<MyApp.B>

This all works well until i have something like the following:

GenericThing<MyApp.A.Entity> and GenericThing<MyApp.B.Entity>

Because these two classes have the same name the serializer cant differentiate between the two entities and attempts to serialize both to GenericThingOfEnitity.

Is there a way of decorating GenericThing so that it is more specific about its generic argument during serialization (ie serializes to GenericThingOfMyApp.B.Enitity or similar)? I unfortunately don’t have control over either MyApp.A or MyApp.B

Answer 1

You can specify different XML namespaces, e.g.:

var entityA = new GenericThing<MyApp.Entity>();
var entityB = new GenericThing<MyAppB.Entity>();
var serializer1 = new XmlSerializer(entityA.GetType(), "aaa");
var serializer2 = new XmlSerializer(entityB.GetType(), "bbb");