BinaryFormatter does not exist in CF. Solutions?

Question

I need to serialize/deserialize obj in/from byte[] on compact framework but there is no BinaryFormatter, what should i do? Thanks. This is the class i am using on the server side and i want it also on the client(a device with windows mobile 6)

public class Serializer
{
    public byte[] SerializeObject(object obj)
    {
        if (obj == null)
            return null;
        using (MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream())
        {
            BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
            formatter.Serialize(stream, obj);
            return stream.ToArray();
        }
    }

    public object DeserializeObject(byte[] bytes)
    {
        if (bytes == null)
            return null;
        BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
        MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream(bytes);
        return formatter.Deserialize(stream);
    }
}

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

10

For your scenario, you might consider switching protobuf-net; this is not the same format as BinaryFormatter, so both client and server would need tweaks, but is a binary serialization API that works on both platforms, and is typically much smaller as an added extra. The format is actually google's "protocol buffers" encoding; very fast, platform-independent, and designed to be flexible as you add properties etc. And it is free. Some fool just gives it away.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

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answered Feb 23 '11 at 13:54

Marc Gravell

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What kind of fool would give away such things!? Heresy! – ctacke Feb 23 '11 at 14:19
Giving it away is the only thing he can do to feel like he's making the world a better place. That fool probably works some dead end job for a manager who gives requirements like "Make it Awesome" and is obsessed with ponies or something. If he'd only work on something that made programmers jobs easier.... :) – kemiller2002 Feb 23 '11 at 14:19

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 23 '11 at 14:14

We originally used the As Good As It Gets Compact Framework Serialization which is completely binary compatible with the full framework BinaryFormatter but the per-device licensing was a deal breaker. Depending on how many devices you need to support, it may work for you. We also found that BinaryFormatter did have memory and time overhead -- not anywhere near the cost of SoapFormatter but still significant for a CE device.

In the end, we created a serialization framework using BinaryWriter and BinaryReader directly along with System.Activator to create the classes. This allowed us to remove a great deal of the memory and time overhead associated with the built in serialization at the cost of careful versioning of the objects and ordering of the fields. It should be noted that our custom serialization work pre-dated the release of protbuf.net.

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 23 '11 at 13:50

you can find an implementation of what you need for the CF here: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/CF_serializer.aspx

also interesting: how to serialize objects in compact framework

I did not try it myself because I have never needed it. sorry if I only post few links.

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

From MSDN's Differences between the .NET Compact Framework and the .NET Framework:

Serialization

Because of size and performance considerations, the .NET Compact Framework does not support binary serialization using BinaryFormatter, or SOAP serialization using SoapFormatter.

However, the .NET Compact Framework does provide serialization support for transmitting object data by using SOAP in XML Web services, and serializing datasets to XML.

BinaryFormatter does not exist in CF. Solutions?

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