How to serialize a class with a TextRange property?

Question

I'm trying to serialize a class that has a property of type TextRange in it.

Example:

public class MyClass
{
    private string someProp;
    public string SomeProp
    {
        get { return someProp; }
        set { someProp = value; }
    }

    private TextRange myTextRange;
    public TextRange MyTextRange
    {
        get { return myTextRange; }
        set { myTextRange = value; }
    }
}

The thing is, that the TextRange type can't be serialized regularly while serializing the whole class, it has a special method of its own for serializing itself, i'm doing it like this:

using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
{
    myTextRange.Save(ms, DataFormats.Xaml, true);
    string xaml = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(ms.ToArray());
}

The problem is that I want the class to be serialized into one string (xml string) with the TextRange property and the other property together. I don't mind using another serialization method (not xml) but I don't see how it solves the problem.

Regularly I serialize the whole class at once, but the TextRange class is not marked as serializable (no binary serilaization) and doesn't have an empty constructor (no xml serilization).

That's how I do it regularly:

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(MyClass));
StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();
using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(stringWriter))
{
    serializer.Serialize(writer, this);
    string xml = stringWriter.ToString();
    return xml;
}

How can I do this?

I removed a tag from your question's title. See [here](http://stackoverflow.com/help/tagging) why. — dymanoid, Nov 11 '16 at 12:29
@HeadhunterXamd the text from a RichTextBox with the formatting. — moonlander, Nov 11 '16 at 12:30
@moonlander you mean the full textbox or the selected text? If you need the selected text its the Text property of the TextRange instance. That is just a string so you can easily construct something for it. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.documents.textrange(v=vs.110).aspx#Anchor_3 — Headhunter Xamd, Nov 11 '16 at 12:32
@HeadhunterXamd i need the whole text that's inside the RichTextBox, including it's formatting (color, size etc...). — moonlander, Nov 11 '16 at 12:39
then you can ignore the TextRange is it not? if so, just add the `[NonSerialized]` attribute to the TextRange field. — Headhunter Xamd, Nov 11 '16 at 12:42
but i do want that TextRange to be serialized. it contains all the text that's in the RichTextBox, including the formatting of the text. The issue is that i can't figure out how to serialize both of the TextRange and the Text properties of my class into the same xml block. — moonlander, Nov 11 '16 at 12:45
i meant both the TextRange and the SomeProp string property. — moonlander, Nov 11 '16 at 12:56

moonlander · Answer 1 · 2016-11-12T00:53:21.907

Well, for anyone interested. The problem was that i wanted to have the whole MyClass object serialized to one xml string. But the TextRange requires special serializing method like i wrote in the main post. So the workaround was:

Create a public helper class inside MyClass, say MyClassSerializationHelper.
Add two string properties to it, same as MyClass properties but as strings. In my case SomeProp and MyTextRange. Full properties (getters and setters).

To Serialize:

Create a MyClassSerializationHelper instance.
SomeProp gets the same value from MyClass SomeProp property, because it's a string.
MyTextRange gets the serialized string of the MyClass MyTextRange property using the special serialization method.
Serialize the whole MyClassSerializationHelper instance, you got an xml string.

To Deserialize:

Deserialize the xml string and get a MyClassSerializationHelper instace.
Deserialize the MyTextRange property (it's an xml string) to get a TextRange instance.
Rebuild a MyClass instance using the properties you deserialized.

Hope that's clear.

How to serialize a class with a TextRange property?

1 Answers1