Question

this is simple I know, but i don’t have internet access and this netcafes keyboard sucks, so if someone can answer this question please.

what would be the class ? just give me a kick in the right direction. there is simple arraylist object that I want to write and read to/ from file.
thanks

Answer 1

There’s no single definitive answer to this question. It would depend on the format of the file and the objects in the list. You need a serializer. For example you could use BinaryFormatter which serializes an object instance into a binary file but your objects must be serializable. Another option is the XmlSerializer which uses XML format.

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UPDATE:

Here’s an example with BinaryFormatter:

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        var list = new ArrayList();
        list.Add("item1");
        list.Add("item2");

        // Serialize the list to a file
        var serializer = new BinaryFormatter();
        using (var stream = File.OpenWrite("test.dat"))
        {
            serializer.Serialize(stream, list);
        }

        // Deserialize the list from a file
        using (var stream = File.OpenRead("test.dat"))
        {
            list = (ArrayList)serializer.Deserialize(stream);
        }
    }
}