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c#xmlserializationhyperlinkcyclic-dependency
Pygmy
Pygmy

Reputation: 1266

C# : xml serialization of nodes with cyclic links

I have a class Node something like this :

class Node {
    IEnumerable<Node> inputs;
}

Which basicly defines a simple graph. I want to serialize my graph to a human-readable form, so normally I'd say xml would be the way to go. But XML wasn't made with cyclic dependencies in mind :)

So - what would be the best way to go for serialization of my graph ?

I can think of a few ways :

But I think other people must have had this same problem before, so there might be some better options. Does anyone know of a solid approach ?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 560

Answers (2)

StuartLC
StuartLC

Reputation: 107387

If you switch to WCF DataContractSerializer, you can preserve the Object References (in 3.5 SP 1 and later)

[DataContract(IsReference=true)]

Sowmy has a good write up here

Upvotes: 1

Marc Gravell
Marc Gravell

Reputation: 1064114

For xml, I would go with the id approach (changing the DTO model such that it isn't cyclic).

Note that DataContractSerializer can support cyclic object graphs automatically by passing in true for the preserveObjectReferences option in the overloaded constructors; it won't be quite as simple as XmlSerializer output, but it will still be readable.

Upvotes: 3

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