How to Serialize and Deserialize an XML File into a C# Object (and Vice-Versa)

How to convert any XML file into a C# object and vise versa.

Introduction

 

In this article, we will see how to serialize and deserialize an XML file to a C# object, and convert C# object into an XML file.

 

Serializing XML to C# Object

 

Let's understand how to convert an XML file into a C# object. Take note of the below small XML file to demonstrate.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Company xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Employee name="x" age="30" />
  <Employee name="y" age="32" />
</Company>

To convert this XML into an object, first you need to create a similar class structure in C#. 

[XmlRoot(ElementName = "Company")]
public class Company
{
    public Company()
    {
        Employees = new List<Employee>();
    }

    [XmlElement(ElementName = "Employee")]
    public List<Employee> Employees { get; set; }

    public Employee this[string name]
    {
        get { return Employees.FirstOrDefault(s => string.Equals(s.Name, name, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)); }
    }
}

public class Employee
{
    [XmlAttribute("name")]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [XmlAttribute("age")]
    public string Age { get; set; }
}

Your XML and C# objects are ready. Let's see the final step of converting XML into a C# object. To do that, you need to use System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer to serialize it. 

public T DeserializeToObject<T>(string filepath) where T : class
{
    System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer ser = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(typeof(T));

    using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(filepath))
    {
        return (T)ser.Deserialize(sr);
    }
}

Use the XML file path and use this function. You should see that the XML is converted into a company object with two employee objects. 

 

Deserializing a C# Object in XML

 

Create a C# object, such as a company with a few employees, and then convert it into an XML file. 

var company = new Company();
           company.Employees = new List<Employee>() { new Employee() { Name = "o", Age = "10" } };
           SerializeToXml(company, xmlFilePath);

public static void SerializeToXml<T>(T anyobject, string xmlFilePath)
{
    XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(anyobject.GetType());

    using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(xmlFilePath))
    {
        xmlSerializer.Serialize(writer, anyobject);
    }
}

The output should look like the below text after converting it into XML.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Company xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <Employee age="10" name="o"/>
</Company>

Conclusion

 

In this post, we learned how to serialize and deserialize an XML file to a C# object and vice versa.