Assuming this is your “immutable” object :
public class Immutable
{
public Immutable(string foo, int bar)
{
this.Foo = foo;
this.Bar = bar;
}
public string Foo { get; private set; }
public int Bar { get; private set; }
}
You can create a dummy class to represent that immutable object during serialization/deserialization :
public class DummyImmutable
{
public DummyImmutable(Immutable i)
{
this.Foo = i.Foo;
this.Bar = i.Bar;
}
public string Foo { get; set; }
public int Bar { get; set; }
public Immutable GetImmutable()
{
return new Immutable(this.Foo, this.Bar);
}
}
When you have a property of type Immutable, don’t serialize it, and instead serialize a DummyImmutable :
[XmlIgnore]
public Immutable SomeProperty { get; set; }
[XmlElement("SomeProperty")]
public DummyImmutable SomePropertyXml
{
get { return new DummyImmutable(this.SomeProperty); }
set { this.SomeProperty = value != null ? value.GetImmutable() : null; }
}
OK, this is a bit long for something that looks so simple… but it should work 😉