.net XML Serialization - Storing Reference instead of Object Copy

In .Net/C# Application, I have data structures which have references to each other.
When I serialize them, .Net Serializes all references with separate object copies.
In Following Example, I am trying to serialize to Array of 'Person'

A 'Person' may have reference to another person.

public class Person
{
    public string Name;
    public Person Friend;
}

Person p1 = new Person();
p1.Name = "John";

Person p2 = new Person();
p2.Name = "Mike";

p1.Friend = p2;

Person[] group = new Person[] { p1, p2 };
XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Person[]));
using (TextWriter tw = new StreamWriter("test.xml"))
    ser.Serialize(tw,group );

//above code generates following xml

<ArrayOfPerson>
  <Person>
    <Name>John</Name>
    <Friend>
      <Name>Mike</Name>
    </Friend>
  </Person>
  <Person>
    <Name>Mike</Name>
  </Person>
</ArrayOfPerson>

In above code, the same 'Mike' object are there on two places, since there are two references for the same object.
While deserializing, they become two different objects, which is not exact state when they are serialized.
I want to avoid this and have only copy of object in serialized xml, and all references should refer to this copy. After deserialization , i want to get back, same old data structure.
Is it Possible ?

Solution

It is not possible with XmlSerializer. You could achieve this with DataContractSerializer using the PreserveObjectReferences property. You may take a look at this post which explains the details.

Here's a sample code:

public class Person
{
    public string Name;
    public Person Friend;
}

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Person p1 = new Person();
        p1.Name = "John";

        Person p2 = new Person();
        p2.Name = "Mike";
        p1.Friend = p2;
        Person[] group = new Person[] { p1, p2 };

        var serializer = new DataContractSerializer(group.GetType(), null, 
            0x7FFF /*maxItemsInObjectGraph*/, 
            false /*ignoreExtensionDataObject*/, 
            true /*preserveObjectReferences : this is where the magic happens */, 
            null /*dataContractSurrogate*/);
        serializer.WriteObject(Console.OpenStandardOutput(), group);
    }
}

This produces the following XML:

<ArrayOfPerson z:Id="1" z:Size="2" xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/ToDelete" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:z="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/">
    <Person z:Id="2">
        <Friend z:Id="3">
            <Friend i:nil="true"/>
            <Name z:Id="4">Mike</Name>
        </Friend>
        <Name z:Id="5">John</Name>
    </Person>
    <Person z:Ref="3" i:nil="true"/>
</ArrayOfPerson>

Now set PreserveObjectReferences to false in the constructor and you will get this:

<ArrayOfPerson xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/ToDelete" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <Person>
        <Friend>
            <Friend i:nil="true"/>
            <Name>Mike</Name>
        </Friend>
        <Name>John</Name>
    </Person>
    <Person>
        <Friend i:nil="true"/>
        <Name>Mike</Name>
    </Person>
</ArrayOfPerson>

It is worth mentioning that the XML produced this way is not interoperable and can only be deserialized with a DataContractSerializer (same remark as with the BinaryFormatter).