c# Binary Serialization output size

Question

The output string of the BinarySerializer seems too long. It does not change even if I shorten the property names of the class to single character length.

Here is the class file:

using System;

namespace Models.Accounts
{
    /// <summary>
    /// PasswordResetRequest class
    /// model of a password reset request
    /// </summary>
    [Serializable]
    public class PRR
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// request id
        /// </summary>
        public string I { get; set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// time request received
        /// </summary>
        public DateTime T { get; set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// application to which the password belongs
        /// </summary>
        public string A { get; set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// username whose password needs to be reset
        /// </summary>
        public string U { get; set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// token (guid)
        /// </summary>
        public Guid G { get; set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// token used
        /// </summary>
        public bool D { get; set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// client ip
        /// </summary>
        public string C { get; set; }
    }
}

and I'm using this SO link for serialization. When I use the serializer as

        PRR request = new PRR();
        request.U = "someusername";
        request.G = Guid.NewGuid();

        string searlizedRequest = SingletonCommon.Instance.SerializeObject(request);

I get a very long value for searlizedRequest like 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

Is there any formatter with shorter output I can use or anything else I can try, since this string will be part of a link sent in an email.

I'd put this data in a DB and send the user a small key to that information. — usr
– usr, Commented Jun 5, 2014 at 15:20
If you need just any serialization, then use XmlSerializer. You can control it with attributes and files can be edited/viewed by a human (xml is easy to understand). If you need minimum size, then you have to use binary serialization: BinarySerializer, protobuf (fastests, smallest, not human viewable/editable and required using third-party library, though very well supported). If your aim is to transfer serialized object via ascii-text channel, then why not using json, designed specially? — Sinatr
– Sinatr, Commented Jun 5, 2014 at 15:33
@jgauffin thanks- trying protobuf-net now (though skeptical of continued .net support). usr- good idea - thanks will try that too Sinatr- can't use xml or json since this is a password reset link that is going to user's email. should not be easily decodable — joym8
– joym8, Commented Jun 5, 2014 at 15:43
Converted properties to fields and used [NonSerializable] attribute for some fields, and it reduced the size by almost 40%. Not bad for right now — joym8
– joym8, Commented Jun 5, 2014 at 16:49

Vinod Srivastav · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-11 09:42:07Z

0

Perhaps you can try GZipStream to compress the output when writing to a file to have minimum size

public static void SetCompressed<T>(T data,string name) 
{
    BinaryFormatter bf;
    using(FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(name+ ".object", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write))
    using(GZipStream compressionStream = new GZipStream(fileStream, CompressionMode.Compress))
    {
        bf.Serialize(compressionStream, data);
    }
}

public static T GetCompressed<T>(string name) 
{
    BinaryFormatter bf;
    T Tobject;
    using(FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(name + ".object", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
    using(GZipStream compressionStream = new GZipStream(fileStream, CompressionMode.Decompress))
    {
        Tobject = (T)bf.Deserialize(compressionStream);
    }

    return Tobject;
}

The code above uses BinaryFormatter to serialize any object alongwith FileStream & GZipStream. The GZipStream will compress the output *.object file to some extent.

HACK: You can open the the *.object file with 7-Zip to see the serialized content inside.

answered Jun 11, 2019 at 9:42

Vinod Srivastav

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2 Comments

joym8 Over a year ago

ended up implementing @usr comment.

Vinod Srivastav Over a year ago

The case against Base64 is it encodes strings as UTF-8 first, and then encodes the resulting byte sequence as Base64. So it will increase by 30 -33%.

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