Extension methods for make serializing easier

[svrooij]

Create extension methods to make serializing easier discoverable, as suggested by @baywet

They have been removed from the PR, in this commit. Feel free to re-use svrooij@a4a03d8

Originally posted by @baywet in #311 (comment)

[baywet]

Hi @svrooij
Thanks for creating this issue. Let's talk about the experience first so we can later on decide on solutions.

I'm guessing we'd want the following:

IParsable myModel = new();
await myModel.SerializeAsync("mediaType", stream);
var result = await myModel.SerializeAsStringAsync("mediaType");

await myModel.SerializeToJsonAsync(stream);
var result = await myModel.SerializeToJsonAsStringAsync();

This should work for Parsable[] and IEnumerable<IParsable> as well.

To avoid any confusion, it should be in a sub-namespace.

In terms of parameters, here is what the method with the most parameters would look like, everything else will be a subset.

public static async Task SerializeAsync<T>(this T parsable, string meditaType, Stream targetStream, bool serializeOnlyChangedValues = false, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default) where T : IParsable {
//
}

Did I miss anything? Also CC @andrueastman

[svrooij]

I'm not sure about the other namespace, putting it in another namespace will make discovery harder.
Why not put them in the namespace of the respected project. So the JSON namespace for those extensions and the abstractions.serializer for the generic extensions with the media type parameter.

[svrooij]

@baywet to allow discoverability I'm suggesting the following, what do you think:

• Add those extension methods to the same namespace as the IParsable, this will help with discoverability (which is what we all want I guess)
• Add them to a different namespace, and maybe point them to it with xml docs on the IParsable

But I would suggest to add the extension methods to the dedicated project. That means you won't have a SerializeToJsonAsStringAsync if you did not include the json package. And I guess everybody is using the json package, but we are not using the forms stuff so those are removed when we generate the kiota client. Then having a SerializeToFormUrlEncoded would be weird to have in Abstractions

[baywet]

Something like this?

method name	package	namespace
SerializeAsStringAsync	abstractions	Microsoft.Kiota.Serialization
SerializeToJsonAsStringAsync	serialization json	Microsoft.Kiota.Serialization.Json

???

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