Why doesn't XmlSerializer support Dictionary?

Question

Just curious as to why Dictionary is not supported by XmlSerializer?

You can get around it easily enough by using DataContractSerializer and writing the object to a XmlTextWriter, but what are the characteristics of a Dictionary that makes it difficult for a XmlSerializer to deal with considering it's really an array of KeyValuePairs.

In fact, you can pass an IDictionary<TKey, TItem> to a method expecting an IEnumerable<KeyValuePairs<TKey, ITem>>.

Answer 1

Hashtables need hashcode and equality comparer providers generally. These cant be serialized easily in XML, and definitely will not be portable.

But I think you already found your answer. Just serialize the hashtable as a List<KeyValuePair<K,V>> and then (re)construct it into a hashtable.