Implicit Serialization
Not all serialization and deserialization is explicit. Consider the following set of serializable classes:
[Serializable] public sealed class Person { public string Name; public int Age; } [Serializable] public sealed class Team { public string Name; public Person[ ] Players; }
Serializing an instance of Team
causes the
embedded array of Person
instances to implicitly
be serialized.
Additionally, types can be serialized as part of method invocations.
For example, imagine a function that merges two
Team
s using some complex algorithm, declared as
follows:
public Team MergeTeams(Team teamOne, Team teamTwo) {...}
If instances of the type containing this method were always created
and then used from within the same AppDomain
, the
calling code and the method itself could share the
Team
references. However, if we want to invoke
this method from outside the AppDomain
it was
created in (or even from off the machine it was created on), the
method invocation needs to be remoted across the
AppDomain
machine boundary.
While the remoting process and the supporting infrastructure in the
Framework is rich, powerful, and complex, this chapter
doesn’t delve into remoting. However, it is helpful
to understand that one of the steps in remoting involves turning a
method call into a pair of request and response messages that can be
transmitted across AppDomain
or machine
boundaries. If the MergeTeams
method is remoted,
the teamOne
and teamTwo
parameters are implicitly serialized into ...
Get C# in a Nutshell, Second Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.