I checked but seem to be unable to see how to directly serialize a class to a byte array and subsequently deserialize from a byte array using Marc Gravell's protobuf-net implementation.
Edit: I changed the question and provided code because the original question of how to serialize into byte[] without having to go through stream was admittedly trivial. My apologies.
Updated Question: Is there any way to not have to deal with generics and instead infer the type of the property "MessageBody" through reflection when it is passed through the constructor? I assume I cannot serialize object type, correct? The current solution looks very cumbersome in that I need to pass in the type of the MessageBody each time I instantiate a new Message. Is there a sleeker solution to this?
I came up with the following:
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Message<string> msg = new Message<string>("Producer", "Consumer", "Test Message");
byte[] byteArray = msg.Serialize();
Message<string> message = Message<string>.Deserialize(byteArray);
Console.WriteLine("Output");
Console.WriteLine(message.From);
Console.WriteLine(message.To);
Console.WriteLine(message.MessageBody);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
[ProtoContract]
public class Message<T>
{
[ProtoMember(1)]
public string From { get; private set; }
[ProtoMember(2)]
public string To { get; private set; }
[ProtoMember(3)]
public T MessageBody { get; private set; }
public Message()
{
}
public Message(string from, string to, T messageBody)
{
this.From = from;
this.To = to;
this.MessageBody = messageBody;
}
public byte[] Serialize()
{
byte[] msgOut;
using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
{
Serializer.Serialize(stream, this);
msgOut = stream.GetBuffer();
}
return msgOut;
}
public static Message<T> Deserialize(byte[] message)
{
Message<T> msgOut;
using (var stream = new MemoryStream(message))
{
msgOut = Serializer.Deserialize<Message<T>>(stream);
}
return msgOut;
}
}
What I like to get to is something such as:
Message newMsg = new Message("Producer", "Consumer", Foo); byte[] byteArray = newMsg.Serialize();
and Message msg = Message.Deserialize(byteArray);
(where Deserialize is a static method and it always deserializes into an object of type Message and only needs to know what type to deserialize the message body into).
there's a few different questions here, so I'll answer what I can see: if I've missed anything just let me know.
Firstly, as noted, a MemoryStream is the most common way of getting to a byte[]. This is consistent with most serializers - for example, XmlSerializer, BinaryFormatter and DataContractSerializer also don't have an "as a byte[] overload", but will accept MemoryStream.
Generics: you don't need to use generics; v1 has Serializer.NonGeneric, which wraps this away from you. In v2, the "core" is non-generic, and can be accessed via RuntimeTypeModel.Default; of course Serializer and Serializer.NonGeneric continue to work.
For the issue of having to include the type: yes, the protobuf spec assumes the receiver knows what type of data they are being given. A simple option here is to use a simple wrapper object as the "root" object, with multiple typed properties for the data (only one of which is non-null). Another option might spring from the inbuilt inheritance support via ProtoInclude (note: as an implementation detail, these two approaches are identical).
In your specific example, perhaps consider:
[ProtoContract]
[ProtoInclude(1, typeof(Message<Foo>))]
.... More as needed
[ProtoInclude(8, typeof(Message<Bar>))]
public abstract class Message
{ }
[ProtoContract]
public class Message<T> : Message
{
...
}
Then just serialize with <Message>
- the API will create the right type automatically.
With recent builds, there is also a DynamicType option that includes type data for you, for example:
[ProtoContract]
public class MyRoot {
[ProtoMember(1, DynamicType=true)]
public object Value { get; set; }
}
This will work for any Value that holds a contract-type instance (but not for primitives, and ideally not involving inheritance).