Demo of how to easily serialize and deserialize objects to and from XML

Contact.cs

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// <auto-generated>
//     This code was generated by a tool.
//     Runtime Version:4.0.30319.239
//
//     Changes to this file may cause incorrect behavior and will be lost if
//     the code is regenerated.
// </auto-generated>
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------

// 
// This source code was auto-generated by xsd, Version=4.0.30319.1.
// 
namespace MyNameSpace {
    using System.Xml.Serialization;
    
    
    /// <remarks/>
    [System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "4.0.30319.1")]
    [System.SerializableAttribute()]
    [System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
    [System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType=true)]
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute(Namespace="", IsNullable=false)]
    public partial class contact {
        
        private string firstNameField;
        
        private string lastNameField;
        
        private sbyte heightInInchesField;
        
        private string typeField;
        
        /// <remarks/>
        public string firstName {
            get {
                return this.firstNameField;
            }
            set {
                this.firstNameField = value;
            }
        }
        
        /// <remarks/>
        public string lastName {
            get {
                return this.lastNameField;
            }
            set {
                this.lastNameField = value;
            }
        }
        
        /// <remarks/>
        public sbyte heightInInches {
            get {
                return this.heightInInchesField;
            }
            set {
                this.heightInInchesField = value;
            }
        }
        
        /// <remarks/>
        [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlAttributeAttribute()]
        public string type {
            get {
                return this.typeField;
            }
            set {
                this.typeField = value;
            }
        }
    }
}

contact.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<contact type="personal">
  <firstName>John</firstName>
  <lastName>Reilly</lastName>
  <heightInInches>76</heightInInches>
</contact>

contact.xsd

<xs:schema attributeFormDefault="unqualified" elementFormDefault="qualified" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <xs:element name="contact">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element type="xs:string" name="firstName"/>
        <xs:element type="xs:string" name="lastName"/>
        <xs:element type="xs:byte" name="heightInInches"/>
      </xs:sequence>
      <xs:attribute type="xs:string" name="type"/>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

Generated by XSD contact.xsd

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xs:schema id="NewDataSet" xmlns="" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:msdata="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-msdata">
  <xs:element name="contact">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element name="firstName" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" msdata:Ordinal="0" />
        <xs:element name="lastName" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" msdata:Ordinal="1" />
        <xs:element name="heightInInches" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" msdata:Ordinal="2" />
      </xs:sequence>
      <xs:attribute name="type" type="xs:string" />
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="NewDataSet" msdata:IsDataSet="true" msdata:UseCurrentLocale="true">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:choice minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
        <xs:element ref="contact" />
      </xs:choice>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

XmlConverter.cs

using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace My.Helpers
{
    public static class XmlConverter<T>
    {
        private static XmlSerializer _serializer = null;

        #region Static Constructor

        /// <summary>
        /// Static constructor that initialises the serializer for this type
        /// </summary>
        static XmlConverter()
        {
            _serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
        }

        #endregion

        #region Public

        /// <summary>
        /// Deserialize the supplied XML into an object
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="xml"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static T ToObject(string xml)
        {
            return (T)_serializer.Deserialize(new StringReader(xml));
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Serialize the supplied object into XML
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="obj"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static string ToXML(T obj)
        {
            using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
            {
                _serializer.Serialize(memoryStream, obj);
                
                return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(memoryStream.ToArray());
            }
        }

        #endregion
    }
}

XmlConverterUsage.cs

using MyNameSpace;

//Make a new contact
contact myContact = new contact();

//Serialize the contact to XML
string myContactXML = XmlConverter<contact>.ToXML(myContact);

//Deserialize the XML back into an object
contact myContactAgain = XmlConverter<contact>.ToObject(myContactXML);