How to Serialize and Deserialize a Dictionary to Custom XML Without Using XElement?

Serializing and Deserializing a Dictionary from Custom XML Without XElement

Consider a scenario where you have a Dictionary and you need to serialize it to and deserialize it from a custom XML format like the following:

<items>
  <item>

To achieve this serialization and deserialization without using XElement:

Serialization

1. Create a temporary item class:

public class Item
{
    [XmlAttribute]
    public int Id;
    [XmlAttribute]
    public string Value;
}

2. Initialize a Dictionary instance:

Dictionary<int, string> dict = new Dictionary<int, string>()
{
    { 1, "one" }, { 2, "two" }
};

3. Create an XmlSerializer instance:

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Item[]), new XmlRootAttribute() { ElementName = "items" });

4. Serialize the Dictionary into XML:

serializer.Serialize(stream, dict.Select(kv => new Item() { Id = kv.Key, Value = kv.Value }).ToArray());

Deserialization

1. Deserialize the XML into an array of Item objects:

var orgDict = ((Item[])serializer.Deserialize(stream))
               .ToDictionary(i => i.Id, i => i.Value);

Alternative Using XElement

If you later decide to use XElement, here's how you can serialize and deserialize:

Serialization

XElement xElem = new XElement(
                    "items",
                    dict.Select(x => new XElement("item", new XAttribute("id", x.Key), new XAttribute("value", x.Value)))
                 );
var xml = xElem.ToString(); //xElem.Save(...);

Deserialization

XElement xElem2 = XElement.Parse(xml); //XElement.Load(...)
var newDict = xElem2.Descendants("item")
                    .ToDictionary(x => (int)x.Attribute("id"), x => (string)x.Attribute("value"));

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