Understanding Object Serialization

Summary

This chapter introduced the topic of object serialization services. As you have seen, the .NET platform makes use of an object graph to correctly account for the full set of related objects that are to be persisted to a stream. As long as each member in the object graph has been marked with the [Serializable] attribute, the data is persisted using your format of choice (binary, SOAP, or XML).

You also learned that it is possible to customize the out-of-the-box serialization process using two possible approaches. First, you learned how to implement the ISerializable interface (and support a special private constructor) to become more involved with how formatters persist the supplied data. Next, you came to know a set of new attributes introduced with .NET 2.0, which simplifies the process of custom serialization. Just apply the [OnSerializing], [OnSerialized], [OnDeserializing], or [OnDeserialized] attribute on members taking a StreamingContext parameter, and the formatters will invoke them accordingly. The chapter wrapped up with an examination of a final attribute, [OptionalField], which can be used to gracefully version a serializable type.