How to XML-serialize a dictionary

Question

I have been able to serialize an IEnumerable this way:

[XmlArray(\"TRANSACTIONS\")]
[XmlArrayItem(\"TRANSACTION\", typeof(Record))]
public IEnumerable

        

Answer 1

Take a look at the following blog post

• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/psheill/archive/2005/04/09/406823.aspx
• http://web.archive.org/web/20100703052446/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/psheill/archive/2005/04/09/406823.aspx

and this one (not in english, but the code is useful)

• http://huseyint.com/2007/12/xml-serializable-generic-dictionary-tipi/

---

Code sample from: http://web.archive.org/web/20100703052446/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/psheill/archive/2005/04/09/406823.aspx

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Collections;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.Xml;
using System;
public static void Serialize(TextWriter writer, IDictionary dictionary)
{
    List entries = new List(dictionary.Count);
    foreach (object key in dictionary.Keys)
    {
        entries.Add(new Entry(key, dictionary[key]));
    }
    XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List));
    serializer.Serialize(writer, entries);
}
public static void Deserialize(TextReader reader, IDictionary dictionary)
{
    dictionary.Clear();
    XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List));
    List list = (List)serializer.Deserialize(reader);
    foreach (Entry entry in list)
    {
        dictionary[entry.Key] = entry.Value;
    }
}
public class Entry
{
    public object Key;
    public object Value;
    public Entry()
    {
    }

    public Entry(object key, object value)
    {
        Key = key;
        Value = value;
    }
}

It generates output like the following, when the keys and values are strings.

  
    MyKey
    MyValue  
  
      
    MyOtherKey    
    MyOtherValue