Question

I would like to serialize an HashSet of IXmlSerializable objects, is HashSet xml serializable?

In my situation, I have the class User and a HashSet called Users. Can I avoid creating a Users class for serializing purposes?

I would liket o pass the hashset as a parameter to the xml serializer.

Is possible to deserialize the xml if it’s obtained as an http response? I were thinking about using a MemoryStream, are there other possibilities?

Answer 1

Yes, it is serializable to XML. Just try:

var set = new HashSet<string>();
set.Add("hello");
set.Add("world");

var xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(HashSet<string>));
string xml;
using (var writer = new StringWriter())
{
    xs.Serialize(writer, set);
    xml = writer.ToString();
    Console.WriteLine(xml);
}

using (var reader = new StringReader(xml))
{
    var set2 = (HashSet<string>)xs.Deserialize(reader);
    foreach(string s in set2) Console.WriteLine(s);
}