How to get BinaryFormatter to deserialize in a different application

Question

I am using BinaryFormatter to serialize an array of class instances to a file. I can deserialize this fine within the same application. When I try the same deserialization in a different application (that pulls in a common file that does the work) then I get the following error:

{"Could not load file or assembly 'pmlscan, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The module was expected to contain an assembly manifest."}

where pmlscan is the name of the original application. How do I get BinaryFormatter to not try and load pmlscan?

Answer 1

You can achieve it by using custom SerializationBinder. See here: Advanced Binary Serialization: Deserializing an Object Into a Different Type Than the One It was Serialized Into