File I/O and Serialization in C#

In the realm of C# programming, file input/output (I/O) and stream handling form the backbone of data manipulation. Files and streams allow developers to interact with external data sources efficiently, enabling data reading, writing, and serialization.

Reading and writing data to files are common tasks in any application. C# offers several methods and classes to facilitate these operations.

Example: Writing Data to a File

// Write data to the file
File.WriteAllText(filePath, content);
Example: Reading Data from a File

// Read data from the file
string content = File.ReadAllText(filePath);
Console.WriteLine(content);

Serialization is a critical process of converting objects into a format suitable for storage or transmission. C# supports object serialization in various formats like XML and JSON.

Example: XML Serialization

public class Person
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Age { get; set; }
}

// Serialize object to XML
Person person = new Person { Name = “John”, Age = 30 };
XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Person));
using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(“person.xml”))
{
xmlSerializer.Serialize(writer, person);
}
Example: JSON Serialization

// Serialize object to JSON
Person person = new Person { Name = “John”, Age = 30 };
string jsonString = JsonSerializer.Serialize(person);
File.WriteAllText(“person.json”, jsonString);