<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html dir="ltr" lang="en"><head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="content-type"><title>UniversalSerializer - Attributes</title>
<meta content="Christophe Bertrand" name="author"><link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" type="text/css">
<style type="text/css">
</style>
</head><body>
<h1>UniversalSerializer - Good practices<br>
</h1>
<p>
Your type design can help
UniversalSerializer in doing its job.</p>
<p>
</p>
<div class="table_des_matieres">
<ul id="mozToc"><!--mozToc h2 2 h3 3 h4 4 h5 5 h6 6--><li>
<a href="#Constructor">An adequate parametric
constructor</a></li>
<li><a href="#List">A true List, not only an Enumerable</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>
</p>
<h2>
<a name="Constructor"></a>An adequate parametric constructor</h2>
<p>
If your type can not have a default (no parameters) constructor, its fields will
be used by <span>UniversalSerializer when looking for the parameters of the
constructors.</span></p>
<p>
Example:</p>
<pre class="code_source">public class ParametricConstructedClassWithPrivateField
{
<span class="auto-style1"> private readonly int[] IntArray;</span>
<span class="auto-style1"> public ParametricConstructedClassWithPrivateField(int[] intArray)</span>
{
<span class="auto-style1"> this.IntArray = intArray;</span>
}
}</pre>
<p>In this example, <span>UniversalSerializer knows it can use the parametric
constructor since the parameter has the same type and nearly same name than a
field.<br>It will serialize the private field and use its value on
deserialization, calling the constructor.</span></p>
<p>Suggestion: give the same name to the field and to the constructor parameter,
or something close.<br>Example: if the parameter is named "Info", you can name
the field "Info", "_Info", "info" or "_info".</p>
<p>
</p>
<h2>
<a name="List"></a>A true List, not only an Enumerable</h2>
<p>
<span>UniversalSerializer needs to be able to add items to this enumeration in
order to deserialize it.<br>Problem: IEnumerable, IEnumerable<T> and ICollection
define a read-only collection.</span></p>
<p class="remarque">
<span>Please note the generic ICollection<T> is
a writable collection while ICollection (not generic) is read-only.</span></p>
<p>
<span>Suggestion: inherit from IList<T> (generic) or from IList (not generic) when
possible.<br><br>If, for some reason, you do not want your type to inherit from
IList nor ICollection<T>, you can write a function as Add or Insert.<br>Example:</span><br>
</p>
<pre class="code_source">public class L : IEnumerable<int>
{
public void Add(int item)
{
...
}
...
}
</pre>
<p class="remarque">Please note this method (Add or Insert) can be private.<br>
</p>
</body></html>
Submit an article or tip