If you're going to use xml, you might want to have a look at linq.
Below is an example for object serialization taken from
msdn.
Of course you'd have to research and do some work to serialize lists and arrays...
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.Xml.Linq;
public class XElementContainer
{
public XElement member;
public XElementContainer()
{
member = XLinqTest.CreateXElement();
}
public override string ToString()
{
return member.ToString();
}
}
public class XElementNullContainer
{
public XElement member;
public XElementNullContainer()
{
}
}
class XLinqTest
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Test<XElementNullContainer>(new XElementNullContainer());
Test<XElement>(CreateXElement());
Test<XElementContainer>(new XElementContainer());
}
public static XElement CreateXElement()
{
XNamespace ns = "http://www.adventure-works.com";
return new XElement(ns + "aw");
}
static void Test<T>(T obj)
{
using (MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream())
{
XmlSerializer s = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
Console.WriteLine("Testing for type: {0}", typeof(T));
s.Serialize(XmlWriter.Create(stream), obj);
stream.Flush();
stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
object o = s.Deserialize(XmlReader.Create(stream));
Console.WriteLine(" Deserialized type: {0}", o.GetType());
}
}
}