Question

I’m trying to serialize properties of a class that inherits from another using Reflection, but I would like to serialize only the properties of the child class, not the parent ones. How can I do that?

This is what I’m doing, and unfortunately it is getting all properties of the parent class too, as one would expect:

    Public Function SaveData() As System.Collections.Generic.List(Of System.Xml.Linq.XElement) Implements Interfaces.ICustomXMLSerialization.SaveData

        Dim elements As New List(Of System.Xml.Linq.XElement)
        Dim ci As CultureInfo = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture

        With elements

            Dim props As PropertyInfo() = Me.GetType.GetProperties()
            For Each prop As PropertyInfo In props
                If TypeOf Me.GetType.GetProperty(prop.Name).PropertyType Is IList Then
                    .Add(New XElement(prop.Name, DWSIM.App.ArrayToString(Me.GetType.GetProperty(prop.Name).GetValue(Me, Nothing), ci)))
                ElseIf TypeOf Me.GetType.GetProperty(prop.Name).GetValue(Me, Nothing) Is Double Then
                    .Add(New XElement(prop.Name, Double.Parse(Me.GetType.GetProperty(prop.Name).GetValue(Me, Nothing)).ToString(ci)))
                Else
                    .Add(New XElement(prop.Name, Me.GetType.GetProperty(prop.Name).GetValue(Me, Nothing)))
                End If
            Next

        End With

        Return elements

    End Function

Thanks in advance,
Daniel

Answer 1

You need to specify BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly as a parameter to your GetProperties call.

There are often gotchas around the use of these flags, though, so it may take some experimenting to find the exact combination of flags you need. The MSDN description of the enum is here.