Error Inaccessible due to its protection level. Only public types can be processed - when using XmlSerialiser for internal class

Question

I have a number of internal classes in a library DLL that I'm creating. These classes have access via some public methods. A sample internal class is;

internal class MyClass
{
    internal int Id {get;set;}
    internal string Name {get;set;}
}

I need to serialise the object before being returned to the public method. I'm trying to use the XmlSerialise method like

System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer x = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(MyObject.GetType());

But when I try this I get the error

Error Inaccessible due to its protection level. Only public types can be processed

How can I overcome this problem, because I want to keep these internal classes private within the library DLL, and they can only be access using the public methods.

I was of the understanding that Internal classes or members are accessible only within files in the same assembly — neildt, Dec 06 '13 at 18:05

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 14 '20 at 03:34

Serializing internal types using XmlSerializer

Solution here: https://web.archive.org/web/20160108180230/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sowmy/archive/2008/10/04/serializing-internal-types-using-xmlserializer.aspx

Being able to serialize internal types is one of the common requests seen by the XmlSerializer team. It is a reasonable request from people shipping libraries. They do not want to make the XmlSerializer types public just for the sake of the serializer.

Error Inaccessible due to its protection level. Only public types can be processed - when using XmlSerialiser for internal class

1 Answers1