C # Partial Deserialization

Question

So, I have an xml that has a similar structure to this:

<MyObject> <PropertyA>Value</PropertyA> <PropertyB>Value</PropertyB> <PropertyC>Value</PropertyC> <ArrayOfOtherObject> <OtherObject> <PropertyX>Value</PropertyX> <PropertyY>Value</PropertyY> <PropertyZ>Value</PropertyZ> </OtherObject> <OtherObject> <PropertyX>Value</PropertyX> <PropertyY>Value</PropertyY> <PropertyZ>Value</PropertyZ> </OtherObject> <OtherObject> <PropertyX>Value</PropertyX> <PropertyY>Value</PropertyY> <PropertyZ>Value</PropertyZ> </OtherObject> </ArrayOfOtherObject> </MyObject> 

Is there a way to deserialize MyObject but not ArrayOfOtherObject? And then do lazy loading of ArrayOfOtherObject later if necessary?

I usually use XmlDeserialization, but AFAIK always loads it all.

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can use a special constructor that is recognized by the binary deserialization function:

 protected MyObject(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context) { //here some elements you can load right now, and some other to store in so-to-say string in order to load later } 

In the case of XML, here is an example of custom serialization: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcel/archive/2006/05/19/78989.aspx

Answer 2

Are you talking about xml deserialization because it is parsed so you don’t need to load the whole XML file into memory or deserialize it when trying to access a specific object?

This may help consider SAX implementation rather than DOM:

http://www.saxproject.org/