XML serializition.

[User 3749986]

Hello all, i'm making a dynamic light system, that contains scene's. A scene has a lamp (philips livingColor), min 1 max 8, and each lamp has its own platform. The save/edit a scene i am saving all data in the class Lamp (and motor) in a list . The struct: Color_point has string, int and a Color. However, if i want to serialise the class, i wont get a color in the xml. I know this is an private attribute, so i wont get something back. And I already read some more about making a different struc tfor the color. But.. how? See Code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Specialized;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace Light
{
[Serializable()]
public struct Color_Point
{
public string Name;
public int Time;
public Color Rgb;

    public Color\_Point(string name, int time, Color rgb)
    {
        Name = name;
        Time = time; //in ms
        Rgb = rgb;
    }

}
\[Serializable()\]
public class Lamp
{
    public int address;
    public Color current\_Color;
    public Color previous\_Color;
    public List<Color\_Point> list = new List<Color\_Point>();

    public Lamp()
    {
        address = 0;
    }

      

    public void setColor(Int32 time, Color rgb, string name)
    {
        int correct\_time = 0;
        if (name != "Fade")
        {
            if (list.Count == 0)
                list.Add(new Color\_Point(name, 0, rgb));
            else
            {
                correct\_time = getTime("btnColor" + LastNumber()) + time;
                
                list.Add(new Color\_Point(name, correct\_time, rgb));
                
            }
            }
        else 
            list.Add(new Color\_Point(name, time, rgb));
        
    }

How can i make sure that i also save the Colors?? Thank you!

[Dave Kreskowiak]

An easy way around that is to make the color private and expose it's constituant parts (R, G, B) as pubic properties. A leaner way to do it would be to implement your own custom serializer for your class. See this[^] for a quick explanation and sample.

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
     2006, 2007, 2008