Object serialization using binary formatters in C#

In this article I'll show you the method of serializing a class object on a disk drive in a data file using binary formatters in C#. When we serialize an object, we actually preserve the state of the object on the disk so we can pick its state right from there where we left.

A classic example can be of a video game. For example you're developing a video game and you want to stop and exit the game but you would also like to start playing the game from where you left it. You could achieve this functionality as a game developer to serialize all of your objects on the disk.

We have already seen how we can serialize and deserialize some text using binary formatter in Microsoft.Net in a previous article:
Serialization of data using binary formatters in C#

In this article we're using binary formatter again for serialization but this time we'll serialize an object. You'll need following two namespaces for this purpose.

using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;

First of all we need to define a class which is serializable:

[Serializable]
class Product
{
public int ProductID;
public double Price;
public string Name;


public Product(int _productID, double _price, string _name)
{
ProductID = _productID;
Price = _price;
Name = _name;
}
}

This is a simple product class having attribute Serializable, which makes objects of this class capable of being serialized.

Following code serializes the object of class product on the disk.

Product objProduct = new Product(1,200,'someproduct');
FileStream fs = new FileStream("c:\\productobject.Data", FileMode.Create);
BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
bf.Serialize(fs, objProduct);
fs.Close();

You'll see that when you execute this code it'll create a file with the specified name on the hard drive and will save the object's status in it.

Now, when you want to deserialize the object, that is, you want to load the state of the object in to an object of Product class you'll use following code.

Product objProduct;
FileStream fs = new FileStream("c:\\productobject.Data", FileMode.Open);
BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
objProduct = (Product)bf.Deserialize(fs);
fs.Close();

In some next article I'll show you how can we serialize an object using Soap formatter that is also known as XML serialization.

Serialization of data using binary formatters in C#

Sometimes our program needs to save objects and data on hard drive. It is actually a process to preserve state of an object on the hard drive. Microsoft.Net provides a mechanism called serialization and the reverse process by which we load the state of object again is called the deserialization.

There are two methods to perform serialization knows as binary and soap. In this article I’ll use binary serialization and I’ll try to keep the things simple in this article. So, I’ll just try to serialize text to hard drive and then deserialize it again. In some later article I’ll show you how to serialize application class objects to hard drive.

First of all include following namespaces:

using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;

let say we want to serialize some text from the text box and here is the code:

FileStream fs = new FileStream("c:\\SerializedData.Data", FileMode.Create);
BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
bf.Serialize(fs, this.textBox1.Text);
fs.Close();

Now, you have serialized text in a data file on the hard drive. In order to deserialize it use the following code and show deserialized data in a text box.

FileStream fs = new FileStream("c:\\SerializedData.Data", FileMode.Open);
BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
string data = (string)bf.Deserialize(fs);
fs.Close();
this.textBox1.Text = data;