Cookbooks
C#
Chapter 10. Data Formats and Serialization
Working with YAML

C#:
Working with YAML

How to:

C# doesn’t have built-in support for YAML, but you can easily work with YAML by using third-party libraries such as YamlDotNet. First, you need to install the YamlDotNet package:

Install-Package YamlDotNet -Version 11.2.1

Reading YAML:

Imagine you have a YAML file config.yaml with the following content:

appSettings:
  name: MyApp
  version: 1.0.0

You can read and parse this YAML file in C# like this:

using System;
using System.IO;
using YamlDotNet.Serialization;
using YamlDotNet.Serialization.NamingConventions;

public class AppConfig
{
    public AppSettings appSettings { get; set; }
}

public class AppSettings
{
    public string name { get; set; }
    public string version { get; set; }
}

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var yaml = File.ReadAllText("config.yaml");
        var deserializer = new DeserializerBuilder()
            .WithNamingConvention(UnderscoredNamingConvention.Instance) // Adjust the naming convention accordingly
            .Build();

        var config = deserializer.Deserialize<AppConfig>(yaml);

        Console.WriteLine($"Name: {config.appSettings.name}, Version: {config.appSettings.version}");
    }
}

Sample Output:

Name: MyApp, Version: 1.0.0

Writing YAML:

To write data to a YAML file, use the Serializer class from YamlDotNet. Here is how you serialize an object back to YAML:

using System;
using System.IO;
using YamlDotNet.Serialization;
using YamlDotNet.Serialization.NamingConventions;

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var config = new AppConfig
        {
            appSettings = new AppSettings
            {
                name = "MyApp",
                version = "2.0.0"
            }
        };

        var serializer = new SerializerBuilder()
            .WithNamingConvention(UnderscoredNamingConvention.Instance) // Adjust the naming convention accordingly
            .Build();

        var yaml = serializer.Serialize(config);
        File.WriteAllText("updatedConfig.yaml", yaml);

        Console.WriteLine(yaml);
    }
}

Sample Output:

appSettings:
  name: MyApp
  version: 2.0.0

This straightforward approach demonstrates how to efficiently work with YAML in your C# projects, making it simple to read from and write to YAML files using the YamlDotNet library.

Working with XML