Serialize a Bitmap in C#/.NET to XML

Question

I want to XML-Serialize a complex type (class), that has a property of type System.Drawing.Bitmap among others.

    /// <         


        

Answer 1

I would do something like:

[XmlIgnore]
public Bitmap LargeIcon { get; set; }

[Browsable(false),EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never)]
[XmlElement("LargeIcon")]
public byte[] LargeIconSerialized
{
    get { // serialize
        if (LargeIcon == null) return null;
        using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream()) {
            LargeIcon.Save(ms, ImageFormat.Bmp);
            return ms.ToArray();
        }
    }
    set { // deserialize
        if (value == null) {
            LargeIcon = null;
        } else {
            using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(value)) {
                LargeIcon = new Bitmap(ms);
            }
        }
    }
}