write list of objects to a file

Question

I\'ve got a class salesman in the following format:

class salesman
{
    public string name, address, email;
    public int sales;
}

I\'ve

Answer 1

If you want xml serialization, you can use the built-in serializer. To achieve this, add [Serializable] flag to the class:

[Serializable()]
class salesman
{
    public string name, address, email;
    public int sales;
}

Then, you could override the "ToString()" method which converts the data into xml string:

public override string ToString()
    {
        string sData = "";
        using (MemoryStream oStream = new MemoryStream())
        {
            XmlSerializer oSerializer = new XmlSerializer(this.GetType());
            oSerializer.Serialize(oStream, this);
            oStream.Position = 0;
            sData = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(oStream.ToArray());
        }
        return sData;
    }

Then just create a method that writes this.ToString() into a file.

UPDATE The mentioned above will serialize single entry as xml. If you need the whole list to be serialized, the idea would be a bit different. In this case you'd employ the fact that lists are serializable if their contents are serializable and use the serialization in some outer class.

Example code:

[Serializable()]
class salesman
{
    public string name, address, email;
    public int sales;
}

class salesmenCollection 
{
   List salesmanList;

   public void SaveTo(string path){
       System.IO.File.WriteAllText (path, this.ToString());
   }    

   public override string ToString()
   {
     string sData = "";
     using (MemoryStream oStream = new MemoryStream())
      {
        XmlSerializer oSerializer = new XmlSerializer(this.GetType());
        oSerializer.Serialize(oStream, this);
        oStream.Position = 0;
        sData = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(oStream.ToArray());
      }
     return sData;
    }
}