Programming .NET Components, 2nd Edition

Serialization and Streams

Using a file stream isn’t mandatory—you can serialize an object’s state into any type of stream, such as a network or memory stream. Example 9-12 demonstrates how to serialize and deserialize an object to and from a memory stream, using the same definitions as in Example 9-4.

Example 9-12. Serialization and deserialization using a memory stream

MyClass obj = new MyClass();
obj.Number1 = 123;

IGenericFormatter formatter = new GenericBinaryFormatter();

//Create a memory stream
Stream stream = new MemoryStream();
using(stream)
{
   formatter.Serialize(stream,obj);

   obj = null;
   stream.Position = 0
               ; //Seek to the start of the memory stream

   obj = formatter.Deserialize<MyClass>(stream);
}

Debug.Assert(obj.Number1 == 123);

Tip

.NET remoting uses a memory stream when marshaling an object by value across app domains. Marshaling by value is covered in Chapter 10.

You can actually use a memory stream to clone a serializable object, too. Example 9-13 shows the static Clone() method of the SerializationUtil static helper class.

Example 9-13. Cloning a serializable object

public static class SerializationUtil
{
   static public T Clone<T>(T source)
   {
      Debug.Assert(typeof(T).IsSerializable);

      IGenericFormatter formatter = new GenericBinaryFormatter();
      Stream stream = new MemoryStream();
      using(stream)
      {
         formatter.Serialize(stream,source);
         stream.Seek(0,SeekOrigin.Begin);

         T clone = formatter.Deserialize<T>(stream);
         return clone;
      }
   }
   //Rest of SerializationUtil
}

The Clone() method first ...