Question

If I am dealing with several standard xml formats what would be the best practice way of encapsulating them in C# 3.5? I’d like to end up with something similar to the System.ServiceModel.Syndication namespace.

A class that encapsulates the ADF 1.0 XML standard would be one example. It has the main XML root node, 6 child elements, 4 of which are required IIRC, several required and optional elements and attributes further down the tree. I’d like the class to create, at a minimum, the XML for all the required pieces all the way up to a full XML representation. (Make sense).

With LINQ 4 XML and extension classes, etc, etc, there has to be some ideas on quickly generating a class structure for use. Yes? No? 🙂

Am not sure if I gave enough details to get one correct answer but am willing to entertain ideas right now.

TIA

Answer 1

XML serialization seems a good approach. You could even use xsd.exe to generate the classes automatically…

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EDIT

Note that the class names generated by the tool are usually not very convenient, so you might want to rename them. You might also want to change arrays of T to List<T>, so that you can easily add items where needed.

Assuming the class for the root element is named ADF, you can load an ADF document as follows :

ADF adf = null;
XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ADF));
using (XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(fileName))
{
    adf = (ADF)xs.Deserialize(reader);
}

And to save it :

ADF adf = ...; // create or modify your document
...
XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ADF));
using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(fileName))
{
    xs.Serialize(writer, adf);
}