Serialization and Deserialization in .Net Using C#

Serialization: 

—  Converting an object instance into a format that can either be stored to the disk or transported over the network.—  Object can be recreated with its current state at a different location.

How Serialization Works?

—  A .NET formatter class must be used to control the serialization of the object to and from the stream

—  The serialized stream carries information about the objects type, including its assembly name, culture & version

Role Of Formatters:

—  Determines the serialization format for objects.

—  The 2 formatters that inherit from the IFormatter Interface are –

— 1. BinaryFormatter (Convert in Binary Format)

— 2. SOAPFormatter (Convert in XML Format)

Serializing Using SOAPFormatter:

Here we will discuss formatting with SOAPFormatter, you can easily do the BinaryFormatter just by replacing the SOAPFormatter into BinaryFormatter in Code:

• First make a assembly and add it into a Console Application, You can learn how to make a assembly here Use a DLL in C#.
• Make an object of the DLL in the Console Application, store values in object and Serialize it like the code given below.

Code for Serialization:

using System.IO;

using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Soap;

class Program

    {

        static void Main(string[] args)

        {           

tax t = new tax();

            Console.WriteLine("Enter the % of tax for salaray less than 2 Lacs?");

            t.taxes[0, 1] = double.Parse(Console.ReadLine()); // storing values in object

           

           

            Stream mystream = File.OpenWrite("serialized.ex");  // creating a file with .ex to serialize the object in this file

           SoapFormatter formatter = new SoapFormatter();  // object of SoapFormatter Class

            formatter.Serialize(mystream, t);  // serializing 't' object in file "mystream"

            mystream.Close();  // closing the .ex file

            Console.WriteLine("Serialized");

         }

     }

Point to Remember:

Use [serializable] keyword with the class you want to serialize like given:

[Serializable]

   public class tax

    {

        public double[,] taxes = new double[4, 2];

    }

Code for Deserialization:

Deserialization is done on the machine where you want to use the data of serialized File, you can practice it in an application and show data there. First you have to add the DLL that you added in  The Code is Given below:

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {                      

           SoapFormatter formatter = new SoapFormatter(); // object of SoapFormatter Class

           FileStream file = new FileStream(@"C:\\serialized.ex", FileMode.Open); //opening the .ex file

           tax t = formatter.Deserialize(file) as tax; // de formatting as object

           t.taxes[0, 1] = 12; // now you can access data you stored while serializing

        }

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