Question

I’m trying to serialize into a Xml File an object which is declared as ILIst, but it’s an instance of List. The exception tells me the reason: You can’t serialize an interface.

This is really necessary in my design, or what other way do I have to serialize it?

Answer 1

I suppose the reason you need to keep the design with IList is because it’s a common interface to other module. One possible solution:

Instead of:

    [XmlElement("Test")]
    public IList<String> Tests
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

You can probably try:

    [XmlElement("Test")]
    public List<String> TestList
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    [XmlIgnore]
    public IList<String> Tests
    {
        get { return TestList; }
    }

This way you can keep the same interface, and meanwhile take advantage of serialize/deserialize functionality in .Net Xml library.