Serialization pros and cons

first time ever I did some examples of Serialization.

I am on the hook to write code that would read an excel file that has five fields.

Should I use the conventional way to read and write the data from the excel file or Seriable way ?

are there any disadv and advantages on way over the other?

thanks
nath

What sort of Excel file is it? If its a CSV ten you don't need serialization. If its a normal excel file then serialization won't work unless you do it all manually.

what is the advantage of using Serializable way?

the file is comma separated values file.

thanks
nath

If you're reading a CSV file then you'd simply use a StreamReader or ADO.NET. I don't see an advantage to doing it any other way, although that doesn't mean that there isn't one.

Jm,

the reason for my thought of using serialization is, after reading the content of the excel file (which has historical data of a stock), I would like to show that data in a chart (just like they show in yahoo finance).

does this requirement need the data to be read from CSV file in serialization format?

thanks
nath

The point of serialisation is to convert an object into a form that can easily be sent over a serial connection, hence the name. If you want to create a chart then I don't see how that helps you. What you would want for a chart would be tabular data, so I would think that using ADO.NET to read the CSV into a DataTable would be the most effective in that case. If you prefer there would be less overhead (I think) using a StreamReader and you could still read the data into a DataTable or some other form, like a jagged or multidimensional array or some form of collection. I guess the advantage of ADO.NET is that more is done for you and you have the power of SQL to perform complex queries on the data if desired.

I have written a stupid ExcelReader class and ExcelRow. You might want to look at it. Also attached is a unit test of my ExcelReader class.