Question

Possible Duplicate:
Easy way to convert a Dictionary<string, string> to xml and visa versa

I have sample class:

public class SampleClass
{
   public Dictionary<string, List<string>> SampleProperties {get;set;}
}

I want serialize this class to xml.
How I can do this?
I want output xml similar to this example:

<DataItem>
   <key>
      <value></value>
      <value></value>
      <value></value>
   </key>
</DataItem>

Regards

Answer 1

You can use Linq to Xml to create required xml from your SampleClass object:

SampleClass sample = new SampleClass();
sample.SampleProperties = new Dictionary<string, List<string>>() {
    { "Name", new List<string>() { "Greg", "Tom" } },
    { "City", new List<string>() { "London", "Warsaw" } }
};

var result = new XElement("DataItem", 
                 sample.SampleProperties.Select(kvp =>
                    new XElement(kvp.Key, 
                      kvp.Value.Select(value => new XElement("value", value)))));
result.Save(path_to_xml);

Output:

<DataItem>
   <Name>
      <value>Greg</value>
      <value>Tom</value>
   </Name>
   <City>
      <value>London</value>
      <value>Warsaw</value>
   </City>
</DataItem>

---

De-serializing from xml:

SampleClass sample = new SampleClass();
sample.SampleProperties = XElement.Load(path_to_xml).Elements().ToDictionary(
                              e => e.Name.LocalName,
                              e => e.Elements().Select(v => (string)v).ToList());