Question - What is serialization? Write an example program to serialize a DataSet.
Answer -
Serialization is the method of converting an object into a byte stream which can be stored as well as transmitted over the network. The advantage of serialization is that data can be transmitted in a cross-platform environment across the network and also it can be saved in a storage medium like persistent or non-persistent.
The code for serializing a DataSet is:
using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.IO;
public partial class Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection("Data Source=data_source_name;Initial Catalog=employee;Integrated Security=True"); //Create connection object
SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter("select * from emp", conn); //DataAdapter creation
DataSet s = new DataSet();
da.Fill(s);
FileStream fObj = new FileStream("C:\\demo.xml", FileMode.Create); // Create a XML file
XmlSerializer sObj = new XmlSerializer(typeof(DataSet));
sObj.Serialize(fObj, s); //Serialization of a DataSet
fObj.Close();
}
}
In the above given example, the database name is employee and, the table name is emp. The data in a DataSet will be serialized and stored in a demo.xml file by using Serialize() method.