Question

I would like to know the most common scenarios where xml serialization may fail in .NET.

Answer 1

I’m thinking mainly of XmlSerializer here:

• it is limited to tree-like data; it can’t handle full object graphs
• it is limited to public members, on public classes
• it can’t really do much with object members
• it has some weaknesses around generics
• like many serializers, it won’t touch instance properties on a collection (bad practice in the first place)
• xml simply isn’t always a good choice for large data (not least, for performance)
• requires a public parameterless constructor

DataContractSerializer solves some of these, but has its own limitations:

• it can’t handle values in attributes
• requires .NET 3.0 (so not much use in 2.0)