Question

I would like to save an instance of a c#.NET class in SQL for later retrieval. I am able to use LINQ to SQL to add a record complete with all the xml that makes up the class.

Now how do I retrieve that xml and reconstruct the class object instance?

Answer 1

Serialize your object to an XML string:

    public static string ToXml<T>(T obj)
    {
        XmlWriterSettings settings = new XmlWriterSettings();

        settings.OmitXmlDeclaration = true;
        using (Stream stream = new MemoryStream())
        using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(stream, settings))
        {
            new XmlSerializer(obj.GetType()).Serialize(writer, obj);
            writer.Flush();
            stream.Flush();
            stream.Position = 0;
            using (TextReader reader = new StreamReader(stream))
            {
                return reader.ReadToEnd();
            }
        }
    }

Deserialize an XML string into an object:

    public static T FromXml<T>(string xml)
    {
        using (TextReader reader = new StringReader(xml))
        {
            try
            {
                return (T)new XmlSerializer(typeof(T)).Deserialize(reader);
            }
            catch (InvalidOperationException)
            {
                // string passed is not XML, return default
                return default(T);
            }
        }
    }