Sample of attribute usage in c# (csharp).

        To show usage of attribute let’s write method, which pass all fields of a object and if a field has attribute [NonSerialized], then the method will copy value into the field from second object. The method can be used to restore unserialized fields from original object.

Sample:

Class:

[Serializable]
public class FooClass
{
    public int data1;
    [NonSerialized] public int data2;
    public FooClass(int data1, int data2)
    {
        this.data1 = data1;
        this.data2 = data2;
    }
}

Usage:

FooClass destObject = new FooClass(10, 20);
FooClass sourceObject = new FooClass(10, 30);

Debug.Print("destObject.data2: {0}, sourceObject.data2: {1}", destObject.data2, sourceObject.data2);

RestoreUtils.RestoreNonSerialized(destObject, sourceObject);

Debug.Print("destObject.data2: {0}, sourceObject.data2: {1}", destObject.data2, sourceObject.data2);

Output:

We can see, that method RestoreUtils.RestoreNonSerialized restored values of destObject field data2 from sourceObject.

Sources of RestoreUtils.RestoreNonSerialized

using System;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Collections;

namespace ReflectionServices
{
    public class RestoreUtils
    {
        const BindingFlags flags = BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Public;

        public static void RestoreNonSerialized(object dest, object source)
        {
            if (dest == null || source == null)
                return;

            Type objectType = dest.GetType();
            if (objectType.IsPrimitive | objectType.IsValueType)
                return;

            FieldInfo[] dstFieldsInfo = objectType.GetFields(flags);
            FieldInfo[] srcFieldsInfo = source.GetType().GetFields(flags);

            for (int fieldIndex = 0; fieldIndex < dstFieldsInfo.Length; fieldIndex++)
            {
                FieldInfo fieldInfo = dstFieldsInfo[fieldIndex];
                if (fieldInfo.IsNotSerialized)
                {
                    object newValue = srcFieldsInfo[fieldIndex].GetValue(source);
                    fieldInfo.SetValue(dest, newValue);
                    continue;
                }

                object dstFieldObject = fieldInfo.GetValue(dest);
                object srcFieldObject = srcFieldsInfo[fieldIndex].GetValue(source);
                if (dstFieldObject != null && srcFieldObject != null)
                    RestoreNonSerialized(dstFieldObject, srcFieldObject);
            }

            IEnumerable dstEnumerable = dest as IEnumerable;
            if (dstEnumerable != null)
            {
                IEnumerable srcEnumerable = source as IEnumerable;
                if (srcEnumerable != null)
                {
                    IEnumerator srcEnumerator = srcEnumerable.GetEnumerator();
                    foreach (Object dstItem in dstEnumerable)
                    {
                        bool next = srcEnumerator.MoveNext();
                        if (!next)
                            break;
                        Object srcItem = srcEnumerator.Current;

                        RestoreNonSerialized(dstItem, srcItem);
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Reference:

Attributes (C# Programming Guide)

 

How to serialize c# object to binary data.

       The simplest way to serialize object, that is use class BinaryFormatter.

Sample of serialization to file:

using (FileStream stream = new FileStream(tempFilePath, FileMode.Create))
{
    BinaryFormatter b = new BinaryFormatter();
    b.Serialize(stream, originalData);
}

Sample of deserialization to file:

Data actualData;
using (FileStream stream = new FileStream(tempFilePath, FileMode.Open))
{
    BinaryFormatter b = new BinaryFormatter();
    actualData = (Data)b.Deserialize(stream);
}

where class Data has attribute [Serializable].

See sources on “C# tips samples” project.

Reference:

BinaryFormatter Class

The simplest way to store object to .xml file in c#.