You could write a recursive method that would run down the object graph using reflection to persist the object... Putting it back could be much more difficult. Who knows if any of those objects are holding references to unmanaged or system resources. If i was to do anything this nuts, I would go for the .GetFields(...) method on the type.
Another idea...
If you are only doing this to speed up development why not wrap their clases with your own adapter classes. This would allow you to replace the third party libraries with your own simplifed mock classes and allow for better chance for replacement and reuse later.
Sick as it is... This was easier then I thought it would be. (While this works... please consider wrapping the third party classes.)
public static class Tools
{
public static XElement AsXml(this object input)
{
return input.AsXml(string.Empty);
}
public static XElement AsXml(this object input, string name)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(name))
name = input.GetType().Name;
var xname = XmlConvert.EncodeName(name);
if (input == null)
return new XElement(xname);
if (input is string || input is int || input is float /* others */)
return new XElement(xname, input);
var type = input.GetType();
var fields = type.GetFields(BindingFlags.Instance |
BindingFlags.NonPublic)
.Union(type.GetFields(BindingFlags.Instance |
BindingFlags.Public));
var elems = fields.Select(f => f.GetValue(input)
.AsXml(f.Name));
return new XElement(xname, elems);
}
public static void ToObject(this XElement input, object result)
{
if (input == null || result == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException();
var type = result.GetType();
var fields = type.GetFields(BindingFlags.Instance |
BindingFlags.NonPublic)
.Union(type.GetFields(BindingFlags.Instance |
BindingFlags.Public));
var values = from elm in input.Elements()
let name = XmlConvert.DecodeName(elm.Name.LocalName)
join field in fields on name equals field.Name
let backType = field.FieldType
let val = elm.Value
let parsed = backType.AsValue(val, elm)
select new
{
field,
parsed
};
foreach (var item in values)
item.field.SetValue(result, item.parsed);
}
public static object AsValue(this Type backType,
string val,
XElement elm)
{
if (backType == typeof(string))
return (object)val;
if (backType == typeof(int))
return (object)int.Parse(val);
if (backType == typeof(float))
return (float)int.Parse(val);
object ret = FormatterServices.GetUninitializedObject(backType);
elm.ToObject(ret);
return ret;
}
}
public class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
var obj = new { Matt = "hi", Other = new { ID = 1 } };
var other = new { Matt = "zzz", Other = new { ID = 5 } };
var ret = obj.AsXml();
ret.ToObject(other);
Console.WriteLine(obj); //{ Matt = hi, Other = { ID = 1 } }
Console.WriteLine(other); //{ Matt = hi, Other = { ID = 1 } }
}
}
The code will never run in a production environment:oP – Musketry