Nsryjdtyk

I have two classes: GameObject and SampleObject : GameObject and a list of type GameObject. I've serialized instances of these classes into a XML document. My problem occurs once I deserialize (load) this document.

In XML file instances are serialized as:

<Root>

 <GameObject>

  <Type>Namespace.MyType</Type>

 </GameObject>

</Root>

Where Type represents desired type. And each instance is serialized under GameObject tag.

After parsing this document I obtain a list of GameObject. Now I need to restore correct type:

foreach (GameObject g in myList)

{

  GameObject tempObject = (GameObject)Activator.CreateInstance(Type.GetType(g.TypeString));              

}

Problem is that tempObject is blank (which is correct). I'd like to (with some shorthand) restore common (shared) variables between g and tempObject. Ex:

tempObject.Property1 = g.Property1

tempObject.Property2 = g.Property2

XmlSerializer supports polymorphism, but you'll have to indicate up front which types to exprect. You can do this using an attribute on the base type:

[XmlInclude(typeof(SampleObject))]

public class GameObject

{

}

You can also pass these types to the constructor of XmlSerializer, for instance if you don't own the GameObject class. Full example:

Root root = new Root();

root.Objects.Add(new GameObject { Property1 = 2 });

root.Objects.Add(new SampleObject { Property1 = 5, Property2 = 12 });



XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Root), new Type { typeof(SampleObject) });

using (MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream())

{

    ser.Serialize(stream, root);

    stream.Position = 0;

    Root deserialized = (Root)ser.Deserialize(stream);

}

It outputs the following xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

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

  <GameObject>

    <Property1>2</Property1>

  </GameObject>

  <GameObject xsi:type="SampleObject">

    <Property1>5</Property1>

    <Property2>12</Property2>

  </GameObject>

</Root>

I used the below classes for this example:

[XmlRoot]

public class Root

{

    public Root()

    {

        Objects = new List<GameObject>();

    }



    [XmlElement("GameObject")]

    public List<GameObject> Objects { get; set; }

}



public class GameObject

{

    public int Property1 { get; set; }

}



public class SampleObject : GameObject

{

    public int Property2 { get; set; }

}