How to serialize a DataTable to a string?

Question

Recently I was in the need to serialize a DataTable as a string for further processing (storing in a file).

So I asked myself: How to serialize a DataTa

Answer 1

You can also try writing out the DataTable to XML which works just as nicely:

Dim dt As DataTable
Dim DataTableAsXMLString As String
'...code to populate DataTable
Using sw As New StringWriter()       
    dt.WriteXml(sw)
    DataTableAsXMLString = sw.ToString()
End Using

...then if needed you can convert the XML right back to a DataTable:

Dim ds As New DataSet
Dim dt2 As DataTable
Using sr As New StringReader(DataTableAsXMLString)
    ds.ReadXml(sr)
    dt2 = ds.Tables(0)
End Using