Convert object to byte[]

[Charming12]

Hi All,

I am stuck with a unique problem, I have a class whose object i need to convert to a byte[] to send it further.

I am using microsoft's Binaryformatter to convert object to byte[] as per given below.

But problem here is that the converted byte[] contains 245 bytes of value instead of 22 what the class actually should contain.

private byte[] ObjectToByteArray(Object obj)
{
      if(obj == null)
               return null;
     BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
     MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
     bf.Serialize(ms, obj);
    return ms.ToArray();
 }

Can anyone help me out as it is a big hindrance for me to proceed further.

Thanks in Advance
Eric Haas.

[Plater]

I would guess the extra bytes are there to describe the actual datatype. since you are using a class, extra information must be serialized to dictate what the object was before

[maya7]

I had the same problem, I couldn't find an answer, so I used a different way.
Instead of converting an object, I builded byte[] buffer from the Object's data and sent this buffer. It worked for me.

Class nObj = (Class )obj.
 
 //you should know the size of the object
byte[] buffer = new byte[MSG_SIZE]; 
int index = 0;
 
//set the data - insert the data in the right order    
buffer[index] = (byte)nObj.m_entId;
//index is updated, depends on the datatype ( int16 in this example )
index +=2;
 
buffer[index] = (byte)nObj.m_bTask;
//index is updated, depends on the datatype ( byte in this example )
index += 1;
 
//you have buffer that holds all the data
return buffer

Good Luck!