I have 2 networked apps that should send serialized protobuf-net messages to each other. I can serialize the objects and send them, however, I cannot figure out how to deserialize the received bytes.
I tried to deserialize with this and it failed with a NullReferenceException.
// Where "ms" is a memorystream containing the serialized
// byte array from the network.
Messages.BaseMessage message =
ProtoBuf.Serializer.Deserialize<Messages.BaseMessage>(ms);
I am passing a header before the serialized bytes that contains message type ID, which I can use in a giant switch statement to return the expected sublcass Type. With the block below, I receive the error: System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException ---> System.NullReferenceException.
//Where "ms" is a memorystream and "messageType" is a
//Uint16.
Type t = Messages.Helper.GetMessageType(messageType);
System.Reflection.MethodInfo method =
typeof(ProtoBuf.Serializer).GetMethod("Deserialize").MakeGenericMethod(t);
message = method.Invoke(null, new object[] { ms }) as Messages.BaseMessage;
Here's the function I use to send a message over the network:
internal void Send(Messages.BaseMessage message){
using (System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream()){
ProtoBuf.Serializer.Serialize(ms, message);
byte[] messageTypeAndLength = new byte[4];
Buffer.BlockCopy(BitConverter.GetBytes(message.messageType), 0, messageTypeAndLength, 0, 2);
Buffer.BlockCopy(BitConverter.GetBytes((UInt16)ms.Length), 0, messageTypeAndLength, 2, 2);
this.networkStream.Write(messageTypeAndLength);
this.networkStream.Write(ms.ToArray());
}
}
This the class, with base class, I'm serializing:
[Serializable,
ProtoContract,
ProtoInclude(50, typeof(BeginRequest))]
abstract internal class BaseMessage
{
[ProtoMember(1)]
abstract public UInt16 messageType { get; }
}
[Serializable,
ProtoContract]
internal class BeginRequest : BaseMessage
{
[ProtoMember(1)]
public override UInt16 messageType
{
get { return 1; }
}
}
[Serializable,
ProtoContract,
ProtoInclude(50, typeof(BeginRequest))]
abstract internal class BaseMessage
{
abstract public UInt16 messageType { get; }
}
[Serializable,
ProtoContract]
internal class BeginRequest : BaseMessage
{
public override UInt16 messageType
{
get { return 1; }
}
}
To receive an object:
//where "this.Ssl" is an SslStream.
BaseMessage message =
ProtoBuf.Serializer.DeserializeWithLengthPrefix<BaseMessage>(
this.Ssl, ProtoBuf.PrefixStyle.Base128);
To send an object:
//where "this.Ssl" is an SslStream and "message" can be anything that
// inherits from BaseMessage.
ProtoBuf.Serializer.SerializeWithLengthPrefix<BaseMessage>(
this.Ssl, message, ProtoBuf.PrefixStyle.Base128);
Serializer.NonGeneric.Deserialize(Type, Stream); //Thanks, Marc.
or
RuntimeTypeModel.Default.Deserialize(Stream, null, Type);