Creating an XmlNode/XmlElement in C# without an XmlDocument?

c#, xml

Solution

You may want to look at how you can use the built-in features of .NET to serialize and deserialize an object into XML, rather than creating a `ToXML()` method on every class that is essentially just a Data Transfer Object.

I have used these techniques successfully on a couple of projects but don’t have the implementation details handy right now. I will try to update my answer with my own examples sometime later.

Here's a couple of examples that Google returned:

XML Serialization in .NET by Venkat Subramaniam http://www.agiledeveloper.com/articles/XMLSerialization.pdf

How to Serialize and Deserialize an object into XML http://www.dotnetfunda.com/articles/article98.aspx

Customize your .NET object XML serialization with .NET XML attributes http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/rotemb/archive/2008/07/27/customize-your-net-object-xml-serialization-with-net-xml-attributes.aspx

Problem

I have a simple class that essentially just holds some values. I have overridden the `ToString()` method to return a nice string representation. Now, I want to create a `ToXml()` method, that will return something like this: ``` <Song> <Artist>Bla</Artist> <Title>Foo</Title> </Song> ``` Of course, I could just use a `StringBuilder` here, but I would like to return an `XmlNode` or `XmlElement`, to be used with `XmlDocument.AppendChild`. I do not seem to be able to create an `XmlElement` other than calling `XmlDocument.CreateElement`, so I wonder if I have just overlooked anything, or if I really either have to pass in either a `XmlDocument` or `ref XmlElement` to work with, or have the function return a String that contains the XML I want?

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