Code Reference A collection of code for my reference (and perhaps other people too)

Serialization to XML with CDATA tags

Sometimes you need CDATA tags around complex text in your destination XML.

There is no build in way of doing so (that I have found).

I found this nifty CdataWrapper class on Marc Gravell's blog. Thanks Marc!

Here is the basic class.

public sealed class CDataWrapper : IXmlSerializable
{
        // implicit to/from string
        public static implicit operator string(CDataWrapper value)
        {
            return value == null ? null : value.Value;
        }
        public static implicit operator CDataWrapper(string value)
        {
            return value == null ? null : new CDataWrapper
            {
                Value =
                    value
            };
        }
        public System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchema GetSchema()
        {
            return null;
        }
        // "" => <Node/>
        // "Foo" => <Node><![CDATA[Foo]]></Node>
        public void WriteXml(XmlWriter writer)
        {
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(Value))
            {
                writer.WriteCData(Value);
            }
        }
        // <Node/> => ""
        // <Node></Node> => ""
        // <Node>Foo</Node> => "Foo"
        // <Node><![CDATA[Foo]]></Node> => "Foo"
        public void ReadXml(XmlReader reader)
        {
            if (reader.IsEmptyElement)
            {
                Value = "";
            }
            else
            {
                reader.Read();
                switch (reader.NodeType)
                {
                    case XmlNodeType.EndElement:
                        Value = ""; // empty after all...
                        break;
                    case XmlNodeType.Text:
                    case XmlNodeType.CDATA:
                        Value = reader.ReadContentAsString();
                        break;
                    default:
                        throw new InvalidOperationException("Expected text/cdata");
                }
            }
        }
        // underlying value
        public string Value { get; set; }
        public override string ToString()
        {
            return Value;
        }
}

To use it, you must change your DataMember from String to CDataWrapper, make it private and give it a public property.

This:

[DataMember]
pubblic string Answer { get; set; }

Becomes this:

pubblic string Answer { get; set; }
[DataMember(Name="Answer", EmitDefaultValue=false)]
private CDataWrapper AnswerCDATA
{
    get { return Answer; }
    set { Answer = value; }
}

Then the serialization is done with one line:

.
.
.
XElement xml = Microsoft.ServiceModel.Web.SerializationExtensions.ToXml(object);
.

So simple!!!!

More on Object Serialization to XML

It seems there are hundreds of ways to serialize object.

Here are just a few:

This one now seems very clumbsy. You pass in the object and the object type. It returns a string. I can't see the point of using this one any more now that I have found the next one.

public static string ContractObjectToXml<T>(T obj)
{
    DataContractSerializer dataContractSerializer = new DataContractSerializer(obj.GetType());
    String text;
    using (MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        dataContractSerializer.WriteObject(memoryStream, obj);
        byte[] data = new byte[memoryStream.Length];
        Array.Copy(memoryStream.GetBuffer(), data, data.Length);
        text = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(data);
    }
    return text;
}

This one I have started using is the most simple I have seen so far.

.
.
.
XElement xml = Microsoft.ServiceModel.Web.SerializationExtensions.ToXml(object);
.

This one returns a stream. It gives you a bit more control over what is shown and included in the XML.

public static Stream Serialize(Object obj)
{
            MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream();
            DataContractSerializer dcSerializer = new DataContractSerializer(obj.GetType());
            XmlWriterSettings xmlWriterSettings = new XmlWriterSettings();
            xmlWriterSettings.Encoding = new UTF8Encoding(false);
            xmlWriterSettings.ConformanceLevel = ConformanceLevel.Document;
            xmlWriterSettings.Indent = true;
            //xmlWriterSettings.OmitXmlDeclaration = true;

            using (XmlWriter xWriter = XmlWriter.Create(memoryStream, xmlWriterSettings))
            {
                dcSerializer.WriteObject(xWriter, obj);
                xWriter.Flush();
                //return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(memoryStream.ToArray());
                memoryStream.Position = 0;
                return memoryStream;
            }
}