make string properties unreadable after object serialization

Question

I'm using this code to serialize my objects

public static void SerializeObject(string filename, MyObject objectToSerialize)
{
    Stream stream = File.Open(filename, FileMode.Create);
    BinaryFormatter bformatter = new BinaryFormatter();

    bformatter.Serialize(stream, objectToSerialize);
    stream.Close();            
}

Serialization and deserialization works fine, but I'm wondering how can I using serialization make objects string properties make unreadable. Now after serialization when user opens file in text editor string properties are readible between other ugly characters.

Answer 1

This is happening because you are using a BINARY formatter, which stores the data in binary form.

So, for example, when storing a string it may prefix the raw string with the length of the string as a binary 32-bit number - which would result in 4 bytes which do not represent characters (and will show "ugly characters" in a text editor).

If you want a human-readable serialized version, you should use XML serialization.

Here's a sample console app that demonstrates how to binary serialize, and two ways to XML serialize the same class:

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

namespace Demo
{
    [Serializable]
    public class Test
    {
        public string Text;
        public int    Number;
    }

    internal class Program
    {
        private static void Main()
        {
            var test = new Test {Text = "Some text", Number = 12345 };

            // Creates a binary file:

            using (var stream = File.Create(@"c:\\test\\test.bin"))
            {
                var formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
                formatter.Serialize(stream, test);
            }

            // Creates an XML file using XmlSerializer:

            using (var stream = File.Create(@"c:\\test\\test1.xml"))
            {
                var formatter = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Test), defaultNamespace : "");
                formatter.Serialize(stream, test);
            }

            // Creates an XML file using XmlWriter and DataContractSerializer:

            DataContractSerializer serializer = new DataContractSerializer(test.GetType());

            using (var streamWriter = File.CreateText(@"c:\\test\\test2.xml"))
            using (var xmlWriter    = XmlWriter.Create(streamWriter, new XmlWriterSettings { Indent = true }))
            {
                serializer.WriteObject(xmlWriter, test);
            }
        }
    }
}