[Mono-devel-list] xml serialization framework

Miguel de Icaza miguel at ximian.com
Thu Apr 24 01:32:34 EDT 2003


Hello [I am CCing Dick here]

   There are a number of other issues in XmlSerialization, so I want to
complement your analysis. 

   You are correct.  The Microsoft implementation of the Xml
serialization will generate a couple of custom classes in C# that are
tailored to the particular class they serialize/deserialize. This is
most likely a performance feature, but I would not bother about this for
now.

   As you have discovered the Xml Serializer is feature packed, and our
version does not support many things.  Duncan and myself looked at the
code slightly in an attempt to run BlogX (which uses serialization
extensively) and noticed that it was missing quite a bit (collections
are handled very nicely, something we dont do right now).

   The problem with Mono's XmlSerialization today is that it has evolved
from one person's original design to another person's quick fixes here
and there, and the resulting code base is not going to scale to the
point of making it feature complete.

   I believe we might be facing a rewrite at this point, components of
it can definitely be salvaged, but am uncertain about the whole code
base.  Dick will be looking into the pieces of the equation (this is
part of a push to get Web Service clients working). 

> Tests on this are in the works.

   One thing that would be *extremely* helpful at this point is having a
regression test suite for the XmlSerializer: C# signatures, classes and
instances, and their generated output, so we can aim towards a specific
goal.  

   On a separate note, would you be interested in maintaining your
findings on a page on the Mono Wiki, so we can all augment it?

	http://www.nullenvoid.com/mono/wiki/

Miguel



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