Transforming a member into another type for (de)serialization process.

See more:

C#

.NET

serialization

.NET4.5

Hey,

Lets say I have a class which contains an internal sensitive structure whose content I don't want to reveal to my user when he receives an object I've serialized, but it is essential that he would have receive this data (a token...)

In other words, I'm interested in replacing this structure with a seriailzed-encrypted string, which will be deconverted into the structure when deserializing the class. This behaviour is expected everytime the class is used in serialization, therefore I would expect to decorate the class with a certain attribute.

Is there a standard way to do that? I know that JSON.NET has a "JsonConverterAttribute", but I prefer the approach of serializer-agnostic classes (I use DataMemberAttribute), and I don't want JSON.NET as a dependency (or as my sole supported serializer...)

I have tried ignoring the internal structure, and using a string property, that sets and gets the internal structure. It was an adequate solution for deserialization, but I had no passable solution for serialization.

I have also tried to create a generic object something like SerializationTransformationObject<tinternaltype,>. It worked fine, but had some esthetic disadvantages. I'm implementing my own JsonConverter already (currently for Deserialization only), I've considered adding support for the forementioned type. That way, my Json Serializer solves the problem himself, without creating dependencies in my code.

I also considered compiling JSON.NET myself, and defining an identical attribute in my abstract serialization library.

What would you recommend?

Thanks!