<C#> Inheriting from List<>

[inetscan]

I am trying to inherit from List<Blah> so essentially I have something like this:

class Foo : List<Blah>

{

...

private string _var1;

private string _var2;

public string Var1

{

get { return _var1; }

}

public string Var2

{

get { return _var2; }

}

...

}

Now the problem is when I go to serialize this I get back only a representation of the inherited List properties (the collection of Blah objects) and nothing in the Foo class like Var1 and Var2. If I pull the List<Blah> down into the class instead of inheriting from it, there are no issues. What is causing the serializer to miss the public properites of the Foo class?

Thanks and regards

[smurfiness]

First, what serializer are you using? XML? Binary?

If you're using an XmlSerializer, have you tried adding serialization attributes to your properties? The serializer may not serialize get-only properties by default:

[XmlElement("Var1Element")]
public String Var1
{
   get {return _var1;}
}

If you're using a binary serializer, you need to mark your class (inheriting from a serializable base class may not good enough) with the SerializableAttribute, and inherit from the ISerializable interface if you require control over serialization.

[inetscan]

  dannysmurf said:

First, what serializer are you using? XML? Binary?

If you're using an XmlSerializer, have you tried adding serialization attributes to your properties? The serializer may not serialize get-only properties by default:

[XmlElement("Var1Element")]
public String Var1
{
   get {return _var1;}
}

If you're using a binary serializer, you need to mark your class (inheriting from a serializable base class may not good enough) with the SerializableAttribute, and inherit from the ISerializable interface if you require control over serialization.

Thanks for your reply. I am using the XmlSerializer and although I did not place a set in the example code, there is indeed one there. Applying the XmlElement attribute was unsuccessful.

Complete example non-working code:

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

public class Foo : List<Blah>
{
	public Foo()
	{
	}

	public Foo(string var1, string var2)
	{
		_var1 = var1;
		_var2 = var2;
	}

	private string _var1;
	private string _var2;

	[XmlElement("Var1")]
	public string Var1
	{
		get { return _var1; }
		set { _var1 = value; }
	}

	[XmlElement("Var2")]
	public string Var2
	{
		get { return _var2; }
		set { _var2 = value; }
	}

	public string ToXML()
	{
		return UtilTesting.GetXML(this);
	}
}

public class Blah
{
	public Blah()
	{

	}

	public Blah(string word, int number)
	{
		_word = word;
		_number = number;
	}

	private string _word;
	private int _number;

	public string Word
	{
		get { return _word; }
		set { _word = value; }
	}

	public int Number
	{
		get { return _number; }
		set { _number = value; }
	}
}

public class UtilTesting
{
	public static string GetXML(object obj)
	{
		XmlDocument retVal = new XmlDocument();
		//Convert the obj into an Xml document
		XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(obj.GetType());
		StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
		TextWriter writer = new StringWriter(sb);
		ser.Serialize(writer, obj);

		return sb.ToString();
	}
}

Use it as follows:

   Foo test = new Foo("Test", "Testing");
   test.Add(new Blah("One", 1));
   test.Add(new Blah("Two", 2));
   string xml = test.ToXML();

[Doli]

I found this on MSDN for the XmLSerializer class.

  Quote

Only collections are serialized, not public properties.

I dont really understand it because when i take out the List<Blah> inherit from foo and the " test.Add(new Blah("One", 1));" in main i get

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<Foo xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">lt;Var1>Test</Var1>
  <Var2>Testing</Var2>
</Foo>

..... might want to post this in the MSDN forms

[inetscan]

  dolimite35 said:

I found this on MSDN for the XmLSerializer class.

I dont really understand it because when i take out the List<Blah> inherit from foo and the " test.Add(new Blah("One", 1));" in main i get

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<Foo xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">lt;Var1>Test</Var1>
  <Var2>Testing</Var2>
</Foo>

..... might want to post this in the MSDN forms

Thanks for you input. I have made a similar post on the MSDN forums...for anyone interested: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost....46&SiteID=1

[inetscan]

I found an answer although I wish it was a better one. Basically when inheriting from a list or any collection for that matter, public properties are not serialized because the collection is treated as an array and not an object. The article can be found here: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost....46&SiteID=1