Introduction
This is a sample Windows application on how .NET does serialization and deserialization of strongly typed custom collection, while handling derived collection items. Implementers are encouraged to extend this base class instead of creating their own.
Brief Description of XML Serialization
- XML serialization can only be applied to classes that contain a
public
default constructor. - Read -only class properties are not serialized. If a property in the class only gets an accessor and does not set an accessor as well, that property will not be serialized.
- Only
Public
properties and fields are serialized, Private
properties are not serialized.
Example: According to Sample Windows Application
The following code snippet shows that the EmployeesList
class serializes with public
fields as XmlElementAttribute
.
[Serializable]
public class EmployeesList
{
will be serialized as an
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("Employee")]
public Employee[] Employees;
[Serializable]
public class Employee
{
private string _firstName;
[XmlElementAttribute("FirstName")]
public string FirstName
{
get
{ return _firstName; }
set
{ _firstName = value; }
}
private string _lastName;
[XmlElementAttribute("LastName")]
public string LastName
{
get
{ return _lastName; }
set
{ _lastName = value; }
}
public
Employee()
{
Constructor
}
}
- To serialize a strongly-typed collection of objects, have the class derived from
System.Colloction.CollectionBase
adding Add ()
, Remove ()
, Insert ()
methods and an indexer. Alternatively, you can send an array of the specified type. - The
System.Collection.Specialized
namespace in the .NET Framework Class Library contains a few specialized, strongly-typed collections that can contain String
s.
Example: According to Sample Windows Application
The following code snippet shows how only a strongly-typed collection of objects, have the class derived from System.Collection.CollectionBase
adding Add ()
, Remove ()
, Insert ()
methods.
public class EmployeesListCollection : System.Collections.CollectionBase
{
public void Add(EmployeesList.Employee inst)
{
base.InnerList.Add(inst);
}
Employee's
public void Update(int
index, EmployeesList.Employee
inst)
{
base.InnerList.Insert(index,
inst); //Insert
}
//Deleting selected Employee's
public void Delete(EmployeesList.Employee inst)
{
base.InnerList.Remove(inst);
}
serialization
public EmployeesList.Employee this[int index]
{
get
{
return
(EmployeesList.Employee)base.InnerList[index];
}
}
}
About the Application
This application describes Add
, Update
, View
, Delete
employee
’s information into an Employees.xml file.
Employee
information consists of the following details:
FirstName
LastName
Address1
Address2
City
State
Country
ZipCode
HomePhone
WorkPhone
Low Level Design
-
Class Diagram
-
Functions Description
-
EmployessUI
private void ViewEmployeesInformation()
– It gets Employees
information from Employees.xml, based on that, it validates the Employees.xml and displays the Employees
information.
Example
Private void ViewEmployeesInformation ()
{
1. Get Employees Information, returns Employees information as String in XML
format
2. Validate Instances XML
3. DisplayEmployees
}
private void DeleteEmployeeInformation ()
– It deletes Employee
information from Employees.xml.
Example
Private void UpdateEmployees ()
{
1. SerializeTOXMLString, returns Employees information as String in XML format
2. Validate Instances XML
3. DeleteEmployeesInformation
}
private void UpdateEmployeeInformation ()
– It updates Employee
information into Employees.xml.
Example
Private void UpdateEmployee ()
{
1. SerializeTOXMLString, returns Employee information as String in XML format
2. Validate Instances XML
3. UpdateEmployeesInformation
}
private void AddNewEmployeeInformation ()
– It adds a new Employee
’s information into Employees.xml.
Example
Private void AddNewEmployees ()
{
1. SerializeTOXMLString, returns Employees information as String in XML format
2. Validate Instances XML
3. AddNewEmployeesInformation
}
-
Controller
Public static string DeserializeToObject (string xmlBuffer)
It deserializes an XML string
to object
.
Public static string SerializeTOXmlString ()
It serializes an object
to an XML string
.
public string GetEmployeesInformation ()
It gets Employee
’s information from Employees.xml.
public bool AddNewEmployeeInformation (string xmlBuffer)
It does add a new Employee
’s information to Employees.xml file.
public bool UpdateEmployeeInformation (string xmlBuffer)
It updates Employee
’s information into Employees.xml file.
public bool DeleteEmployeeInformation (string xmlBuffer)
It deletes the Employee
’s information from Employees.xml file.
Public bool ValidationXml ()
It validates the XML string
format.
-
XML Schema Description
="1.0"="utf-8"
<xs:schema attributeFormDefault="unqualified" elementFormDefault="qualified"
xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<xs:element name="EmployeesList">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element maxOccurs="unbounded" name="Employee">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="FirstName" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="LastName" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="Address1" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="Address2" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="City" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="State" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="Country" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="ZipCode" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="HomePhone" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="WorkPhone" type="xs:string" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:schema>
XML File Description
="1.0"="utf-8"
<EmployeesList
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Employee>
<FirstName>R SHAWN</FirstName>
<LastName>ROUNDTREE</LastName>
<Address1>MAYFIELD STREET</Address1>
<Address2>xy</Address2>
<City>DEMARK</City>
<State>SC</State>
<Country>United States</Country>
<ZipCode>29000</ZipCode>
<HomePhone>379397856</HomePhone>
<WorkPhone>37933000</WorkPhone>
</Employee>
<EmloyeesList>
High Level Design
Figure 1
View Employees Information
It displays all Employees
information in a tabular form as shown in Figure 1.
Delete
It provides an option to delete the selected Employee
information. On clicking the delete button, it should display a confirmation dialog box. If the user confirms, then the Employee
’s information should be deleted from the Employees.xml file and from the Employee
’s information view, upon cancel clicking it should be cancelled.
- View: It provides an option to view selected
Employee
information as Figure 2. - On Viewing the button click, a dialog box displays with selected
Employee
information as Figure (2).
Figure 2
- It allows the editing
Employee
information. Once the user saves it, it updates into the Employees.xml file. Otherwise, a user can select the cancel button to see the main window (Figure 1) without updation.
Figure 3
Add New Employee
- It allows a user to add new
Employee
information into base Employees.xml. - Users have to fill up all
textbox
es information in the following window (Figure 3) and click on the save button, the same information should be added into the Employee.xml file. - Clear button allows to clear all
textbox
es information.
Before Addition of New Employee, Employees.xml as below
="1.0"="utf-8"
<EmployeesList
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Employee>
<FirstName>R SHAWN</FirstName>
<LastName>ROUNDTREE</LastName>
<Address1>MAYFIELD STREET</Address1>
<Address2>xy</Address2>
<City>DEMARK</City>
<State>SC</State>
<Country>United States</Country>
<ZipCode>29000</ZipCode>
<HomePhone>379397856</HomePhone>
<WorkPhone>37933000</WorkPhone>
</Employee>
<EmloyeesList>
After Addition of new Employee, Employees.xml as below
="1.0"="utf-8"
<EmployeesList
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Employee>
<FirstName>R SHAWN</FirstName>
<LastName>ROUNDTREE</LastName>
<Address1>MAYFIELD STREET</Address1>
<Address2>xy</Address2>
<City>DEMARK</City>
<State>SC</State>
<Country>United States</Country>
<ZipCode>29000</ZipCode>
<HomePhone>379397856</HomePhone>
<WorkPhone>37933000</WorkPhone>
</Employee>
<Employee>
<FirstName>ABC</FirstName>
<LastName>XYZ</LastName>
<Address1>XY</Address1>
<Address2>XY</Address2>
<City>Z</City>
<State>Av</State>
<Country>BB</Country>
<ZipCode>324324</ZipCode>
<HomePhone>23423</HomePhone>
<WorkPhone>32432</WorkPhone>
</Employee>
<EmloyeesList>
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