C# Serialization practices of object with custom types

Question

I've created some custom types for example:

public class Temperature
{
    protected double _celcius;

    public Temperature(){}

    public Temperature(double celcius)
    {
        _celcius = celcius;
    }

    public double Celcius
    {
        //sets & returns temperature in Celcius
    }

    public double Fahrenheit
    {
        //sets & returns temperature in Fahrenheit
    }
}

and a similar one for Mass, etc.

I also have a custom object, for example Planet, which uses these custom types as properties.

[Serializable]
public class Planet
{
    public int PositionFromSun;
    public Mass Mass;
    public Temperature Temperature;
}

What is the best practice for serializing Planet in this case considering that Mass and Temperature may change slightly in the future (e.g. adding Kelvin to Temperature)? Should I have Mass and Temperature inheriting from a custom interface of something like IQuantity.

If you're serializing with the BinaryFormatter you don't have to care about public properties, it'll serialize only fields (in your case _celcius). Moreover if you want to save your data to use the default formatter isn't a good idea because of its "proprietary" format and the way it handles versions. — Adriano Repetti, May 22 '12 at 09:29
So you're saying that as long as I keep `_celcius` in there, it doesn't matter what I do with the surrounding code? Could you please expand a little on your second sentence, please? — dav_i, May 22 '12 at 09:34
Yes, you can add as many public properties as you need. For comparison take a look at this post here on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1154198/what-are-the-differences-between-the-xmlserializer-and-binaryformatter — Adriano Repetti, May 22 '12 at 09:38

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:48

1

Please see @Adriano's comment. This is what I needed.

Yes, you can add as many public properties as you need. For comparison take a look at this post here on SO: What are the differences between the XmlSerializer and BinaryFormatter

edited May 23 '17 at 11:48

Community

1
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answered Aug 08 '12 at 14:20

dav_i

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 22 '12 at 09:29

0

Binary serialization is quite picky about properties being added and removed to types. If you use a version tolerant serializer (eg xml based serialisers) you'll be able to reliably serialize / deserialise between versions of classes.

You may want to consider using protobuf.Net for your serialization - it is mature, very very quick and version tolerant.

answered May 22 '12 at 09:29

Rich O'Kelly

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Thanks, I'll take a look at protobuf.Net! – dav_i May 22 '12 at 09:37

C# Serialization practices of object with custom types

2 Answers2