Struggling with Serializing an Array of Objects. Need Help

[Wesley008]

Hi. I'm struggling with this Serializing of Data. and I've checked out the MSDN, and saw the Serializing an Array will make the out put like this:

<PurchaseOrder xmlns:xsi=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/20001/XMLSchema">
    <Items>
        <Item>
            <ItemID>aaa111</ItemID>
            <ItemPrice>34.22</ItemPrice>
        <Item>
        <Item>
            <ItemID>bbb222</ItemID>
            <ItemPrice>2.89</ItemPrice>
        <Item>
    </Items>
</PurchaseOrder>

So how exactly do I do that? The only code for that on the MSDN was:

[VB.NET]
Public Class PurchaseOrder
    public ItemsOrders () As Item
End Class

Public Class Item
    Public ItemID As String
    Public ItemPrice As decimal
End Class

Can someone please direct me a good example for doing this type of serialization?

[.paul.]

try it this way. i used a list(of item)

<?xml version="1.0" ?> 
- <ArrayOfItem xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
- <Item>
  <ItemID>aaa111</ItemID> 
  <ItemPrice>34.22</ItemPrice> 
  </Item>
- <Item>
  <ItemID>bbb222</ItemID> 
  <ItemPrice>2.89</ItemPrice> 
  </Item>
  </ArrayOfItem>

Public Class PurchaseOrder
    Public ItemsOrders As New List(Of Item)
 
    Public Sub New()
        Dim itm As New Item
        itm.ItemID = "aaa111"
        itm.ItemPrice = CDec(34.22)
        ItemsOrders.Add(itm)
        itm = New Item
        itm.ItemID = "bbb222"
        itm.ItemPrice = CDec(2.89)
        ItemsOrders.Add(itm)
    End Sub
 
    Public Sub serialize()
        Dim serializer As New Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(GetType(List(Of Item)))
        Dim fs As New IO.FileStream("test.xml", IO.FileMode.Create)
        serializer.Serialize(fs, ItemsOrders)
        fs.Close()
    End Sub
 
End Class
 
Public Class Item
    Public ItemID As String
    Public ItemPrice As Decimal
End Class

to call it:

Dim po As New PurchaseOrder
po.serialize()

[Wesley008]

That's EXACTLY what I was looking for Thank You. But here's another question, Since I'm going be Editing / Appending to same XML File. How exactly would I do both?

Thanks once again.

[.paul.]

you'll have to deserialize it back into the list, edit the list + then serialize it again

[Wesley008]

For Appending, would I deserialize it, Start Adding to the List, and then Resizeralize it?

[.paul.]

to deserialize:

ItemsOrders = New List(Of Item)
Dim serializer As New Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(GetType(List(Of Item)))
Dim SR As New IO.StreamReader("test.xml")
ItemsOrders = DirectCast(serializer.Deserialize(SR), Global.System.Collections.Generic.List(Of Item))
SR.Close()

[.paul.]

For Appending, would I deserialize it, Start Adding to the List, and then Resizeralize it?

yes.

[Wesley008]

to deserialize:

ItemsOrders = New List(Of Item)
Dim serializer As New Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(GetType(List(Of Item)))
Dim SR As New IO.StreamReader("test.xml")
ItemsOrders = DirectCast(serializer.Deserialize(SR), Global.System.Collections.Generic.List(Of Item))
SR.Close()

WIth that code, to then call items from the XML..

I use ItemsOrder(0) or how?

[Wesley008]

Nice. Thank You! I just messed around with it, and works perfectly.

[.paul.]

you just edit the list, + then when you've finished, re - serialize it

i.e.

ItemsOrders(0).ItemID = "new ID"

[Wesley008]

Last Question.

My XML Output as this:

<ArrayOfItem xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
....
</ArrayOfItem>

How do I change the Name of That? from ArrayOfItem to say Products?

[.paul.]

thats the default when serializing a list.

the best you could do is changing every occurrence of Item to Products, then it'd be:

<ArrayOfProducts xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
....
</ArrayOfProducts>

[techgnome]

Look in MSDN for XMLArray ... and XMLArrayItem... I think that's what you want...

-tg

[Wesley008]

hmm.. Can you give an example with my code? And are you talking about fixing the <ArrayOf...> Problem? or what?