Serialization（序列化）机制<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

1. Serialization and Deserialization

Serialization is the process of converting a complex set of data, such as that which is contained in an object, into a single blob that’s often called a byte stream. The reverse, deserialization, is the process of unpacking the byte stream to re-create the complex set of data.

2. Type of Serialization

Remoting uses a type of serialization that finds all the variables contained within an object, and converts their values into a byte stream.

Web services use a different serialization scheme. Rather than copying the variables within an object, web-services serialization just scans the object to find any fields that are public in scope, and any public properties that are read-write. Read-only and write-only properties are ignored, as are any nonpublic variables.

3. [Serializable()] attribute and ISerializable

Implementing ISerializable is only necessary if the default behavior of serialization is unacceptable, which isn’t usually an issue.

4. [NonSerialized()] attribute

Once a class is marked as [Serializable()], all of its member variables will be automatically serialized into a byte stream when the object is serialized. Sometime, however, we can use [NonSerialized()] attribute marks to set some variables that shouldn’t be serialized. In most cases, these will be references to other objects.

The one caveat with doing this is that any code that interacts with the above reference object variables must assume that they could be null. If the object is serialized and deserialized, the [NonSerialzied()] reference object variable will have the value null in the newly created object.

5. Serialization mechanism

Be aware that Remoting doesn’t transfer the code, but only the data. For this mechanism to work, the DLL containing the required class must be on the client machine along with the client application. In order to deserialize the byte stream on the client, Remoting loads the DLL containing the required class, creates an empty required object, and then populates it with the deserialized data.

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上面关于Serialization和Deserialization的阐述来自Rockford Lhotka《Expert C# Business Objects》，清楚解释了一些比较容易模糊的概念。