BytePack 1.0.2

BytePack

Light-weight, manual serialization.

BytePack is a simple light-weight tool that allows you to manually serialize and deserialize your .NET objects.

Quick Start

To serialize objects, simply "Add" your objects one-by-one to a new BytePack and then "Pack" them into a single byte[]:

BytePackage.BytePack pack = new BytePackage.BytePack();
pack.AddInt(123);
pack.AddString("hello");
pack.AddDoubles(new[] { 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 });
byte[] bytes = pack.Pack();

To deserialize objects, simply "Read" the objects from a BytePack in the same order they were originally added during serialization:

BytePackage.BytePack read = BytePackage.BytePack.Read(bytes);
int i = read.ReadInt();
string s = read.ReadString();
double[] d = read.ReadDoubles();

Console.WriteLine("int is: " + i);
Console.WriteLine("string is: " + s);
Console.WriteLine("doubles are: " + d[0] + ", " + d[1] + ", " + d[2]);

Installing

BytePack is available as a NuGet package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/BytePack/

How it works

BytePack binary-serializes the objects that you add based on their type using built-in .NET methods (e.g. System.BitConverter) and keeps them in an ordered list. When you call BytePack.Pack(), these individual arrays are concatenated to a single larger one.

Usage

There are many different tools available for object-serialization in .NET. BytePack has some advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages

• It is extremely simple and your code is easy-to-read and easy-to-understand - there is no magic happening via Reflection or any other non-obvious means.
• Serialized objects are typically very small compared to text-based serialization, such as JSON.
• Serialization and deserialization are relatively fast operations.
• It is easy and obvious how you can customize the serialization of your objects however you like.

Disadvantages

• Serialized objects are not human-readable.
• Serialized objects contain no metadata with instructions for deserialization. You have to know how they were serialized in order to properly deserialize them.
• Less open-minded colleagues of yours may criticize you for not using something more "standard" like protocol buffers.