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 that I can deserialize MyObject but not the ArrayOfOtherObject? And then later on do a lazy load of ArrayOfOtherObject when needed?

I usually use XmlDeserialization, but AFAIK it always loads the whole thing.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hello,

You can use special constructor which is recognized by binary deserialization functionality:

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 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 deserializing the xml as it is parsed so that you don't have to load the entire xml file into memory, or deserializing it as you try to access the concrete object?

It might help to look at an implementation of SAX as opposed to DOM:

http://www.saxproject.org/