Professional .NET 2.0 Generics

Chapter 9. Reflection, Serialization, and Remoting

The introduction of generics, in some respects, represents an extension of the existing .NET type system. And, of course, whenever types inherit new behavior, the APIs that interact with those types must also evolve to support those concepts. This chapter looks at three specific areas of the .NET Framework—reflection, serialization, and remoting—that are directly influenced by the introduction of generic types. The bulk of this chapter focuses on reflection, describing how generic types are created, examined, and manipulated dynamically via the reflection API. The chapter also looks at how generic types are serialized and the role they can play in solutions that use remoting. Along the way, you'll also see a few scenarios where generics can be applied to create more type-safe interactions with these APIs.