Jay Kimble

When you serialize a dataset, an XML document is created containing the data (everyone knows this, right?)  I just recently did some investigation on the string that gets created for a serialized dataset... Dang!  It contains a lot more info than I thought.  The reason is that it contains the XML Schema plus the data that is contained in the rows.  For copying the data from a query into session, viewstate, or the cache (so that you can re-use the data later), this is way overkill. 

So I had already come up with a better way (doing some caching of data via files).  The dataset also has two methods called ReadXML and WriteXML.  You can use these to create an XML string that contains simply the data.  So here's the code (sorry for the lack of vb colors):

Option Strict On

Imports System.Xml
Imports System.Data
Imports System.Text

Public Class DataSet_Serializaion
  Public Shared Function SmartSerialize(ByVal ds As DataSet) As String
    Dim __ms As System.IO.MemoryStream
    Dim __dcod As Decoder
    Dim __chars() As Char
    Try

      __ms = New System.IO.MemoryStream
      __dcod = Encoding.UTF8.GetDecoder()
      ds.WriteXml(__ms)

      ReDim __chars(CInt(__ms.Length))

      __dcod.GetChars(__ms.GetBuffer(), 0, CInt(__ms.Length), __chars, 0)
      Return New String(__chars)
    Finally
      If Not (__ms Is Nothing) Then
        __ms.Close()
        __ms = Nothing
      End If
      __dcod = Nothing
    End Try

  End Function

  Public Shared Function SmartDeSerialize(ByVal serialized As String) As DataSet
    Dim __ds As DataSet
    ' needed to create an XML TextReader 
    Dim nt As NameTable
    Dim nsmgr As XmlNamespaceManager
    Dim context As XmlParserContext
    Dim tr As XmlTextReader
    Try
      __ds = New DataSet
      nt = New NameTable
      nsmgr = New XmlNamespaceManager(nt)
      context = New XmlParserContext(Nothing, nsmgr, Nothing, XmlSpace.None)

      tr = New XmlTextReader(serialized, XmlNodeType.Document, context)
      __ds.ReadXml(tr)

      Return __ds
    Finally
      If Not (tr Is Nothing) Then
        tr.Close()
        tr = Nothing
      End If
      context = Nothing
      nsmgr = Nothing
      nt = Nothing

    End Try

  End Function
End Class

(CODE NOTE: I had problems using the memory stream for input so I used a generic textreader instead).

Anyway, this will produce an XML representation of just the data behind the dataset.  I would say that you would want to use this one for datasets containing data with no relationships.  I would avoid the use of the above method for data that you are updating (in other words, don't use this for datasets that you intend to use for batch updates).

This example works pretty good... I would still like to add some of the stuff that Carl Franklin's did in his CarlsZipLibrary located here.

(Wow, post #6... I'm almost somebody.. hahaha)