Serialize an array to XML in .NET Framework

Well, this is not too much of a big deal since with a little knowledge about Serialization you will be able to figure this out quite rapidly. I only thought of posting this here since I had in mind the issue of converting an array of (string) values into an XML format and then have it deserialized at a later time when I would have need the array again. For this purpose I used the XmlSerializer class and the MemoryStream class.
The example code I give below shows how to convert a string array to XML and then how to deserialize it from the XML format into a new array.

public static void SerializeDeserializeArray( )
{
    string[ ] strArr = new string[ ] {
        "C:\\Program Files\\myFile1.txt",
        "C:\\Program Files\\myFile2.txt",
        "C:\\Program Files\\myFile3.txt"
    };

    MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream( );
    StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter( memStream );

    XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer( typeof( string[ ] ) );
    ser.Serialize( sw, strArr );

    StreamReader sr = new StreamReader( memStream );

    memStream.Position = 0;
    string str = sr.ReadToEnd( );

    memStream.Position = 0;
    string[ ] deserArr = (string[ ] )ser.Deserialize( memStream );

    if( deserArr != null )
    {
        foreach( string s in deserArr )
        {
            Console.WriteLine( s );
        }
    }

    Console.WriteLine( );
}


Error C2872 ambiguous symbol

I was trying to compile one of my C++ projects and ran into this error:

Error 1 error C2872: 'IServiceProvider' : ambiguous symbol C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\PlatformSDK\include\ocidl.h 8005


Among other files in the project, I had a header file which started like this:

using namespace System;
#include "MyHeader1.h"
#include "MyHeader2.h"


After a little research I have found the cause of this error. I turned on the /showIncludes option of the compiler and saw that one of my headers was actually including the "ocidl.h" file. The Build output will show, among others:
...
2>Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\atlmfc\include\atlcomcli.h
2>Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\PlatformSDK\include\olectl.h
2>Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\PlatformSDK\include\pshpack8.h
2>Note: including file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\PlatformSDK\include\ocidl.h
...

In order to fix this compile time error, I moved the using below the #include as below and it all started working again:
 
#include "MyHeader1.h"
#include "MyHeader2.h"

using namespace System;

Passing an array to a function in C++

In C++ you if you want to modify an array inside a function, you should not return a pointer to it from within the function as this pointer will be out of scope when the function execution ends. You need to make sure that you allocate the array before passing it as a parameter:

int* buffer = new int[ BUFFER_SIZE];

arrayProcessing( buffer, BUFFER_SIZE );
#ifdef _DEBUG
DisplayBuffer( );
#endif

where arrayProcessing is defined like this:

int arrayProcessing( int* buffer, int size )
{
// TODO: modify elements of buffer.
}

How to open a .pdf or .txt file in C#

This is a simple question, with a very simple answer. I've been asking it myself and seeing other people ask it. A solution is to use the System.Diagnostics.Process.Start( ) method.
According to MSDN, using this method is very similar to typing the file's name in the Run dialog box of the Windows start menu.
For instance, if you have a .pdf file that you want to open, just use:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start( "myfile.pdf" );
You can follow this link for more information: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/53ezey2s.aspx.

For a text file, you can use the above method, or if you want to specifically open it with notepad you have to use:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start( "notepad.exe", "myfile.txt" );