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Persisting Insects Data in C#

This exercise focuses on persisting data using a storage method such as a database or file system. You will create a new version of the 'insects' exercise where the data about insects will be saved and retrieved from a file. The program demonstrates how to serialize and deserialize data in C# and how to interact with a file system for storing persistent data.



Group

Object Persistence in C#

Objective

1. Create a class named Insect that holds information about the insect such as name, species, and wingspan.
2. Implement methods to save and load data from a file to persist the insect information.
3. Create a test program to save and retrieve multiple insects from a file.
4. Ensure that the data is correctly serialized before saving and deserialized when loading from the file.

Create a new version of the "insects" exercise, which should persist the data using some form of storage such as a database or file system.

Example C# Exercise

 Copy C# Code 
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;

[Serializable] // Marking the class as serializable
class Insect
{
    // Properties of the Insect class
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Species { get; set; }
    public double Wingspan { get; set; }

    // Constructor for the Insect class
    public Insect(string name, string species, double wingspan)
    {
        Name = name;
        Species = species;
        Wingspan = wingspan;
    }
}

class InsectStorage
{
    // Method to save insect data to a file
    public static void SaveDataToFile(string fileName, Insect[] insects)
    {
        using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Create))
        {
            // Using BinaryFormatter to serialize the data to the file
            BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
            formatter.Serialize(fs, insects);
        }
    }

    // Method to load insect data from a file
    public static Insect[] LoadDataFromFile(string fileName)
    {
        using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Open))
        {
            // Using BinaryFormatter to deserialize the data from the file
            BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
            return (Insect[])formatter.Deserialize(fs);
        }
    }
}

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // Creating an array of insects
        Insect[] insects = new Insect[]
        {
            new Insect("Dragonfly", "Anisoptera", 3.5),
            new Insect("Butterfly", "Lepidoptera", 2.0),
            new Insect("Beetle", "Coleoptera", 1.0)
        };

        // File name where the data will be stored
        string fileName = "insectsData.dat";

        // Saving the insect data to a file
        InsectStorage.SaveDataToFile(fileName, insects);
        Console.WriteLine("Insect data saved to file.");

        // Loading the insect data from the file
        Insect[] loadedInsects = InsectStorage.LoadDataFromFile(fileName);
        Console.WriteLine("Insect data loaded from file:");

        // Displaying the loaded insect data
        foreach (Insect insect in loadedInsects)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"Name: {insect.Name}, Species: {insect.Species}, Wingspan: {insect.Wingspan} cm");
        }
    }
}

 Output

Insect data saved to file.
Insect data loaded from file:
Name: Dragonfly, Species: Anisoptera, Wingspan: 3.5 cm
Name: Butterfly, Species: Lepidoptera, Wingspan: 2.0 cm
Name: Beetle, Species: Coleoptera, Wingspan: 1.0 cm

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