What is Serializable and when should I use it

Question

I found out that some classes use the  Serializable  attribute    What is it     When should I use it     What kinds of benefits will I get

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Serialization is the process of converting an object into a stream of bytes to store the object or transmit it to memory, a database, or a file.

How serialization works

This illustration shows the overall process of serialization:

The object is serialized to a stream that carries the data. The stream may also have information about the object's type, such as its version, culture, and assembly name. From that stream, the object can be stored in a database, a file, or memory.

Details in Microsoft Docs.

User · Answer

Here is short example of how serialization works  I was also learning about the same and I found two links useful  What Serialization is and how it can be done in  NET   A sample program explaining serialization   If you don t understand the above program a much simple program with explanation is given here

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Some practical uses for the  Serializable  attribute    Saving object state using binary serialisation  you can very easily  save  entire object instances in your application to a file or network stream and then recreate them by deserialising - check out the BinaryFormatter class in System Runtime Serialization Formatters Binary Writing classes whose object instances can be stored on the clipboard using Clipboard SetData   - nonserialisable classes cannot be placed on the clipboard  Writing classes which are compatible with  NET Remoting  generally  any class instance you pass between application domains  except those which extend from MarshalByRefObject  must be serialisable    These are the most common usage cases that I have come across

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Since the original question was about the SerializableAttribute  it should be noted that this attribute only applies when using the BinaryFormatter or SoapFormatter   It is a bit confusing  unless you really pay attention to the details  as to when to use it and what its actual purpose is   It has NOTHING to do with XML or JSON serialization   Used with the SerializableAttribute are the ISerializable Interface and SerializationInfo Class  These are also only used with the BinaryFormatter or SoapFormatter   Unless you intend to serialize your class using Binary or Soap  do not bother marking your class as  Serializable   XML and JSON serializers are not even aware of its existence

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What is it  When you create an object in a  Net framework application  you don t need to think about how the data is stored in memory  Because the  Net Framework takes care of that for you  However  if you want to store the contents of an object to a file  send an object to another process or transmit it across the network  you do have to think about how the object is represented because you will need to convert to a different format  This conversion is called SERIALIZATION  Uses for Serialization Serialization allows the developer to save the state of an object and recreate it as needed  providing storage of objects as well as data exchange  Through serialization  a developer can perform actions like sending the object to a remote application by means of a Web Service  passing an object from one domain to another  passing an object through a firewall as an XML string  or maintaining security or user-specific information across applications  Apply SerializableAttribute to a type to indicate that instances of this type can be serialized  Apply the SerializableAttribute even if the class also implements the ISerializable interface to control the serialization process  All the public and private fields in a type that are marked by the SerializableAttribute are serialized by default  unless the type implements the ISerializable interface to override the serialization process  The default serialization process excludes fields that are marked with NonSerializedAttribute  If a field of a serializable type contains a pointer  a handle  or some other data structure that is specific to a particular environment  and cannot be meaningfully reconstituted in a different environment  then you might want to apply NonSerializedAttribute to that field  See MSDN for more details  Edit 1  Any reason to not mark something as serializable  When transferring or saving data  you need to send or save only the required data  So there will be less transfer delays and storage issues  So you can opt out unnecessary chunk of data when serializing

User · Answer

Serialization  Serialization is the process of converting an object or a set of objects graph into a stream  it is a byte array in the case of binary serialization  Uses of Serialization   To save the state of an object into a file  database etc  and use it latter  To send an object from one process to another  App Domain  on the same machine and also send it over wire to a process running on another machine  To create a clone of the original object as a backup while working on the main object  A set of objects can easily be copied to the system   s clipboard and then pasted into the same or another application   Below are some useful custom attributes that are used during serialization of an object   Serializable   -  It is used when we mark an object   s serializable  NonSerialized  -  It is used when we do not want to serialize an object   s field   OnSerializing  -  It is used when we want to perform some action while serializing an object  OnSerialized  -  It is used when we want to perform some action after serialized an object into stream   Below is the example of serialization   Serializable      internal class DemoForSerializable               internal string Fname   string Empty          internal string Lname   string Empty           internal Stream SerializeToMS DemoForSerializable demo                        DemoForSerializable objSer   new DemoForSerializable                MemoryStream ms   new MemoryStream                BinaryFormatter bf   new BinaryFormatter                bf Serialize ms  objSer               return ms                      OnSerializing          private void OnSerializing StreamingContext context                Fname    sheo               Lname    Dayal                      OnSerialized          private void OnSerialized StreamingContext context                      Do some work after serialized object                    Here is the calling code  class Program               string fname   string Empty          string Lname   string Empty           static void Main string   args                        DemoForSerializable demo   new DemoForSerializable                 Stream ms   demo SerializeToMS demo               ms Position   0               DemoForSerializable demo1   new BinaryFormatter   Deserialize ms  as DemoForSerializable               Console WriteLine demo1 Fname               Console WriteLine demo1 Lname               Console ReadLine

[c#] What is [Serializable] and when should I use it?

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