Hi,

I've just started playing around with serialization using the proxy classes.

Serializing has worked great so far but I haven't had the pleasure yet to discover the joy of deserializing ...

I've read the blog article and tried to apply it in my custom EsCollection classes

When I try to deserialize files I've serialized I get an exception saying : There is an error in XML document (8, 6)

 
Inner Exception StackTrace:

   at EntitySpaces.Core.esEntityCollection.Add(Object value)
   at Microsoft.Xml.Serialization.GeneratedAssembly.XmlSerializationReaderEthniesCollectionProxyStub.Read7_EthniesCollectionProxyStub(Boolean isNullable, Boolean checkType)
   at Microsoft.Xml.Serialization.GeneratedAssembly.XmlSerializationReaderEthniesCollectionProxyStub.Read8_EthniesCollectionProxyStub()

Exception StackTrace:

   at System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer.Deserialize(XmlReader xmlReader, String encodingStyle, XmlDeserializationEvents events)
   at System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer.Deserialize(XmlReader xmlReader, String encodingStyle)
   at System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer.Deserialize(TextReader textReader)
   at SampleApplication.BusinessObjects.EthniesCollection.Import(String FileName)
   at SampleApplication.ConfigExportImport.Import(String ArchiveFileName)
   at SampleApplication.frmImportConfig.BackgroundWorker1_DoWork(Object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)

1            Public Shared Sub Export(ByVal FileName As String)
2    
3                Dim Col As New EthniesCollection
4                Col.LoadAll()
5    
6                Dim Proxy As New EthniesCollectionProxyStub(Col)
7    
8                Dim Serializer As New Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(GetType(EthniesCollectionProxyStub))
9                Using Writer As New IO.StreamWriter(FileName, False, System.Text.Encoding.Unicode)
10                   Serializer.Serialize(Writer, Proxy)
11               End Using
12   
13           End Sub
14           Public Shared Sub Import(ByVal FileName As String)
15   
16               Dim Deserializer As New Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(GetType(EthniesCollectionProxyStub))
17               Dim Proxy As EthniesCollectionProxyStub
18   
19               Using Reader As IO.TextReader = New IO.StreamReader(FileName, System.Text.Encoding.Unicode)
20                   Proxy = CType(Deserializer.Deserialize(Reader), EthniesCollectionProxyStub)
21               End Using
22   
23               Proxy.Collection.Save()
24               
25           End Sub

Le XML File:

1    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
2    <EthniesCollectionProxyStub xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
3      <Collection>
4        <Ethnies>
5          <EthnieNum>1</EthnieNum>
6          <EthnieNom>Peulhs</EthnieNom>
7        </Ethnies>
8        <Ethnies>
9          <EthnieNum>2</EthnieNum>
10         <EthnieNom>Wolofs</EthnieNom>
11       </Ethnies>
12       <Ethnies>
13         <EthnieNum>3</EthnieNum>
14         <EthnieNom>Sérères</EthnieNom>
15       </Ethnies>
16     </Collection>
17   </EthniesCollectionProxyStub>

 
I don't know what really is the problem here, but it seems to me that the esCollectionProxyStub doesn't accept more than a record at a time ? I'm saying this because position (8,6) in the XML file is the begining of the second record.

What should I do to deserialise this properly? 

I'm using version 2007.0.709.0,    .Net 2.0, visual studio 2005, win xp pro sp2
 

There were improvements in both v0730 and v0913 to the proxy classes (see the release notes). They do work perfectly if you get the latest release. My guess is they will work for you in v0709 but if you can I would definitely upgrade to v0913. See this post on our BLOG.

There is a download link on that post, near the bottom, there is a web service and a client, the client is setup to run directly off of the web services hosted on our site, you can use our proxy to update collections and single objects.

Hi,

 so I've upgraded to V0913 but it makes it worse, now all xml files created with the Export method are empty (see code for Export method in first message)  :
 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<EthniesProxyStub xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" />

 
When I step throug the Export method code, I see that the collection is not empty (.count > 0).

Something's wrong on your end, we can help though. Did you try our demo, it works fine, also, we have lots of folks using these proxies, they do work. Did you regenerate after upgrading? you need to. Are you 100% positive you have the new dlls included, remove the old ones and re-add. I will be out of town this weekend but will help you next week if you don't solve this. I can assure you however that they do work, again, try the demo I pointed to earlier, you can run the client from your machine against our hosted services and use the proxy.

Also, try without going to disk, like our blogs shows, just do a quick test, serializing and deserializing without going to disk, see what happens?

I had already regenerated my classes, but did it again just to be sure, I had also referenced the 0913 dlls but did it again.

As I am using VistaDB build 38, I have rebuilt the MyMeta dll for MyGeneration, and also inserted an assembly redirection in my app.config.

I've tried your demos and they work just fine, I have never doubted they did, it's just that I'm having some trouble implementing this in my app.

Is there any obvious reason for a proxyStub to generate an xml file containing 0 records when the proxyStub.Collection.Count = 3 ?

I've noticed something though (please refer to the Export method in first message to clearly locate what I'm talking about):

in debug mode, I step through the Export method code and hover on the Proxy object: I see that _coll is Nothing but that Collection.count = 3. Is this information of any help? 

I've checked the "preserve state" checkbox, but still get the problem. 

Here is the fix ==> DOWNLOAD

It contains one template, you just need to overwrite yours, close MyGeneration and unzip this file into C:\Program Files\MyGeneration\Templates\EntitySpaces\VB\Generated assuming you installed MyGeneration into the default folder. The template contained is EntitySpaces_VB_ProxyStubCollection.csgen

Just regenerate and you should be all set.

Thanks for the time and effort you put in it. It's finally working

The fix fixed the serialization (export) problem but deserializing(import) still raised an exception (XML Error (1,1)). It worked after I modified the code

From

            Dim Deserializer As New Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(GetType(EthniesCollectionProxyStub))
            Dim Proxy As EthniesCollectionProxyStub
            Using Reader As IO.TextReader = New IO.StreamReader(FileName, System.Text.Encoding.Unicode)
                Proxy = CType(Deserializer.Deserialize(Reader), EthniesCollectionProxyStub)
            End Using
            Proxy.GetCollection.Save()

To
 

            Dim Deserializer As New Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(GetType(EthniesCollectionProxyStub))
            Dim Proxy As EthniesCollectionProxyStub
            Dim fileContents As String
            fileContents = My.Computer.FileSystem.ReadAllText(FileName)
            Dim sr As New System.IO.StringReader(fileContents)
            Proxy = CType(Deserializer.Deserialize(sr), EthniesCollectionProxyStub)
            Proxy.GetCollection.Save()

I owe you one.