Can I serialize Anonymous Types as xml?

Question

I understood that anonymous types are marked private by the compiler and the properties are read-only. Is there a way to serialize them to xml (without deserialize) ? It wor

Answer 1

My own version of then excellent work @Matthew and @Martin : Arrays of enums are now supported and the notion of arrays in generalized into IEnumerable in order to also support all sort of collections.

public static class ObjectExtensions {
/// 

/// Converts an anonymous type to an XElement.
/// 
/// The input.
/// Returns the object as it's XML representation in an XElement.
public static XElement ToXml2(this object input) {
    return input.ToXml2(null);
}

/// 

/// Converts an anonymous type to an XElement.
/// 
/// The input.
/// The element name.
/// Returns the object as it's XML representation in an XElement.
public static XElement ToXml2(this object input, string element) {
    return _ToXml(input, element);
}

private static XElement _ToXml(object input, string element, int? arrayIndex = null, string arrayName = null) {
    if (input == null)
        return null;

    if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(element)) {
        string name = input.GetType().Name;
        element = name.Contains("AnonymousType") 
            ? "Object" 
            : arrayIndex != null
                ? arrayName + "_" + arrayIndex
                : name;
    }

    element = XmlConvert.EncodeName(element);
    var ret = new XElement(element);

    if (input != null) {
        var type = input.GetType();
        var props = type.GetProperties();

        var elements = props.Select(p => {
            var pType = Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(p.PropertyType) ?? p.PropertyType;
            var name = XmlConvert.EncodeName(p.Name);
            var val = pType.IsArray ? "array" : p.GetValue(input, null);
            var value = pType.IsEnumerable()
                ? GetEnumerableElements(p, (IEnumerable)p.GetValue(input, null))
                : pType.IsSimpleType2() || pType.IsEnum 
                    ? new XElement(name, val) 
                    : val.ToXml2(name);
            return value;
        })
        .Where(v=>v !=null);

        ret.Add(elements);
    }

    return ret;
}

#region helpers

private static XElement GetEnumerableElements(PropertyInfo info, IEnumerable input) {
    var name = XmlConvert.EncodeName(info.Name);

    XElement rootElement = new XElement(name);

    int i = 0;
    foreach(var v in input)
    {
        XElement childElement = v.GetType().IsSimpleType2() || v.GetType().IsEnum ? new XElement(name + "_" + i, v) : _ToXml(v, null, i, name);
        rootElement.Add(childElement);
        i++;
    }
    return rootElement;
}

private static readonly Type[] WriteTypes = new[] {
    typeof(string), typeof(DateTime), typeof(Enum), 
    typeof(decimal), typeof(Guid),
};
public static bool IsSimpleType2(this Type type) {
    return type.IsPrimitive || WriteTypes.Contains(type);
}

private static readonly Type[] FlatternTypes = new[] {
    typeof(string)
};
public static bool IsEnumerable(this Type type) {
    return typeof(IEnumerable).IsAssignableFrom(type) && !FlatternTypes.Contains(type);
}
#endregion
}