Serialization & Deserialization:
The process of storing the state of an object to a storage medium. During this process, the public and private fields of the object and the name of the class, are converted to a stream of bytes, which is then written to a data stream. When the object is subsequently deserialized, an exact clone of the original object is created. Serialization/Deserialization is used to transport or to persist objects.
Types of Serialization :
1. Binary Serialization
2. SOAP Serialization
3. XML Serialization
4. Custom Serialization
.NET 3.5 has new object called DataContractJsonSerliaizer used to JSON serialization for Ajax calls / Javascript calls.
Here i am writing JSONHelper class to Serialize and Deserialize
Add Reference: System.Runtime.Serialization.dll(.NET 3.0), System.ServiceModel.Web.dll(.NET 3.5)
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Json;
public class JSONHelper
{
public static string Serialize(T obj)
{
DataContractJsonSerializer serializer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(obj.GetType());
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
serializer.WriteObject(ms, obj);
string retVal = Encoding.Default.GetString(ms.ToArray());
return retVal;
}
public static T Deserialize(string json)
{
T obj = Activator.CreateInstance();
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(json));
DataContractJsonSerializer serializer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(obj.GetType());
obj = (T)serializer.ReadObject(ms);
ms.Close();
return obj;
}
}
Below class going to use for serialization and Deserialization
[DataContract]
public class Book
{
private int _id; private string _name;
public Book() {}
public Book(int id, string name)
{
_id = id;
_name = name;
}
[DataMember]
public int Id
{
get { return _id; }
set { _id = value; }
}
[DataMember]
public string Name
{
get { return _name; }
set { _name = value; }
}
}
How to Use JSONHelper class to Serialize
Book b1 = new Book(1, “ASP.NET 3.5″);
string jsonOutput = JSONHelper.Serialize<Book>(b1);
Serialization output:
{”Id”:1,”Name”:”ASP.NET 3.5″}
How to Use JSONHelper class to Deserialize
Book b2 = JSONHelper.Deserialize<Book>(jsonOutput);
