Create business objects from XML
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I have a C#/WPF app where all the logic is coded in the dialog boxes. Pretty much like an Access app in fact. I'm re-architecturing it into a MVVM app. Some of my business objects (of type Report) live in a (legacy) database and are created upon user interaction. Some others (of type ReportDefinition and ReportParameter) are from a pre-instantiated set of read-only objects. ReportDefinition objects are identified by a key. In the Access-style app I could use XAML to create a resource dictionary indexed by the ReportDefinition key. It would be very easy to define the various ReportDefinition objects, along with their arrays of ReportParameters in XML. The objects would be readily accessible from my code. How can I achieve a similar thing in the business layer of the new app ? I guess that I'm longing for a sort of XAML-sans-View. I can imagine options based on XmlSerializer but maybe I'm overlooking a very simple and elegant solution. Any suggestions ?