Best way to store data locally in .NET (C#)
I'm writing an application that takes user data and stores it locally for use later. The application will be started and stopped fairly often, and I'd like to make it save/load the data on application start/end.
It'd be fairly straightforward if I used flat files, as the data doesn't really need to be secured (it'll only be stored on this PC). The options I believe are thus:
- Flat files
- XML
- SQL DB
Flat files require a bit more effort to maintain (no built in classes like with XML), however I haven't used XML before, and SQL seems like overkill for this relatively easy task.
Are there any other avenues worth exploring? If not, which of these is the best solution?
Edit: To add a little more data to the problem, basically the only thing I'd like to store is a Dictionary that looks like this
Dictionary<string, List<Account>>
where Account is another custom type.
Would I serialize the dict as the xmlroot, and then the Account type as attributes?
Update 2:
So it's possible to serialize a dictionary. What makes it complicated is that the value for this dict is a generic itself, which is a list of complex data structures of type Account. Each Account is fairly simple, it's just a bunch of properties.
It is my understanding that the goal here is to try and end up with this:
<Username1>
<Account1>
<Data1>data1</Data1>
<Data2>data2</Data2>
</Account1>
</Username1>
<Username2>
<Account1>
<Data1>data1</Data1>
<Data2>data2</Data2>
</Account1>
<Account2>
<Data1>data1</Data1>
<Data2>data2</Data2>
</Account2>
</Username2>
As you can see the heirachy is
- Username (string of dict) >
- Account (each account in the List) >
- Account data (ie class properties).
Obtaining this layout from a Dictionary<Username, List<Account>> is the tricky bit, and the essence of this question.
There are plenty of 'how to' responses here on serialisation, which is my fault since I didn't make it clearer early on, but now I'm looking for a definite solution.
