Serializing Generic Classes

Question

I have read around that serializing generic classes is not supported out of the box with XamlWriter.

First I would like to know why? What is harder about generic classes that makes them non-plug-and-play like all the other classes are.

Second, is there a framework that will allow me to serialize my generic class without much work. (My generic class is fairly involved.)

Answer 1

XamlWriter is hardly the standard serialization method (unless something changed and no one told me!). You haven't actually mentioned what kind of format you want to serialize into, but since you mentioned Xaml I will assume Xml.

For this you can use the DataContractSerializer. It shouldn't have any problems with generic types, and isn't very difficult to use at all. Just remember to markup your class with DataContract and DataMember attributes, just as if you were using WCF.