An object instance is serialized to a serial format, such as an extensible
Markup Language (XML) document, based on a mapping between an arbitrary
annotated source code file and a schema. The arbitrary annotated source
code contains at least one programming type that describes a shape of an
object instance and the schema describes a format of a document having a
serial format. The mapping defines a correspondence between the shape of
the object instance and the format of the document having the serial
format. Subsequently, an object instance is converted to the serial
format by converting public properties, public fields and method
parameters of the object instance to a document having the serial format
based on the mapping. Once the mapping is defined, an XML document can
also be converted to an object instance based on the mapping.
