Quote:
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Originally Posted by emdiesse
(I would love to get this all done in VB.NET will really help me when I go to uni because I will have more knowledge of a higher level language  .) |
Uni will no doubt consist of Hakell, Java and possibly some C
Sorry if my post was confusing; basically the simplest way to store data in a program without using a DBMS like MySQL is in objects, also encouraging good Object Oriented practices - XML Serialization is merely a convenient way to save and load them from disk, with the advantage that unlike conventional Binary Serialization, XML files are human readable.
For instance the following console app demonstrates saving and reloading a hashtable to and from a file:
' N.B. You'll need to add a reference to System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters in your project
Option Explicit On
Option Strict On
Imports System.Data
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters
Module modMain
Sub Main()
Dim CapitalCities As Hashtable = New Hashtable
Dim InputBuffer As Object
With CapitalCities 'Enter some data into the hashtable
.Add("England", "London")
.Add("France", "Paris")
.Add("Japan", "Tokyo")
.Add("USA", "Washington")
.Add("Liechtenstein", "Vaduz")
End With
' Save it to disk
SaveSomething(CType(CapitalCities, Object), Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() & "CapitalCities.xml")
' Clear out the object to prove it's being reloaded from disk
CapitalCities = Nothing
' Load hashtable from disk
LoadSomething(InputBuffer, Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() & "CapitalCities.xml")
CapitalCities = CType(InputBuffer, Hashtable) ' We needed some memory to write to
InputBuffer = Nothing
Dim CapitalCitiesEnum As IDictionaryEnumerator = CapitalCities.GetEnumerator
With CapitalCitiesEnum
Do While .MoveNext
' List contents
Console.WriteLine("The capital of " & CType(.Key, String) & " is " & CType(.Value, String))
Loop
End With
Console.Write("Press enter...") : Console.ReadLine()
End Sub
Public Sub LoadSomething(ByRef SomeInputBuffer As Object, ByVal FilePath As String)
Dim XMLSerializer As Soap.SoapFormatter = New Soap.SoapFormatter
Dim XMLStream As FileStream = New FileStream(FilePath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite)
Try
SomeInputBuffer = XMLSerializer.Deserialize(XMLStream)
Finally
XMLStream.Close()
End Try
End Sub
Public Sub SaveSomething(ByRef SomeOutputBuffer As Object, ByVal FilePath As String)
Dim XMLSerializer As Soap.SoapFormatter = New Soap.SoapFormatter
Dim XMLStream As FileStream = New FileStream(FilePath, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite, FileShare.Read)
Try
XMLSerializer.Serialize(XMLStream, SomeOutputBuffer)
Finally
XMLStream.Close()
End Try
End Sub
End Module