I have got a small class that I would like to use for serializing structs. I would like to know two things:
Performance issue. Since I am passing
Object- it passes just a reference, not a copy of the struct? And since I am returning object of typeTit also only passes a reference?Correctness issue. Will this serialization work for all structs? I mean - is there a possibility where those methods will not work?
public static byte[] ToByteArray(Object obj) { int size = Marshal.SizeOf(obj); byte[] arr = new byte[size]; IntPtr ptr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(size); Marshal.StructureToPtr(obj, ptr, true); Marshal.Copy(ptr, arr, 0, size); Marshal.FreeHGlobal(ptr); return arr; } public static T ToStructure<T>(byte[] arr) where T : new() { T str = new T(); int size = Marshal.SizeOf(str); IntPtr ptr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(size); Marshal.Copy(arr, 0, ptr, size); str = (T)Marshal.PtrToStructure(ptr, str.GetType()); Marshal.FreeHGlobal(ptr); return str; }
Thanks, guys!
EDIT
I now specify that these are structs. Nothing is being copied now?
public static byte[] ToByteArray<T>(ref T str) where T : struct
{
int size = Marshal.SizeOf(str);
byte[] arr = new byte[size];
IntPtr ptr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(size);
Marshal.StructureToPtr(str, ptr, true);
Marshal.Copy(ptr, arr, 0, size);
Marshal.FreeHGlobal(ptr);
return arr;
}
public static T ToStructure<T>(byte[] arr) where T : struct
{
T str = default(T);
int size = Marshal.SizeOf(str);
IntPtr ptr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(size);
Marshal.Copy(arr, 0, ptr, size);
str = (T)Marshal.PtrToStructure(ptr, str.GetType());
Marshal.FreeHGlobal(ptr);
return str;
}
where T : new()towhere T : struct. The former may also take classes with default constructors, while the latter is closer to what you mean and it also implies the former, since all structs can be instantiated usingdefault(T).