Serialiazing/Deserializing list of custom class: Could not find type

Question

Hello,

I'm trying to send serialized data over a NetworkStream. The data is made of a Payload class, with a few fields, including one field that inherits from a custom PayloadType Class. WorldDescription is a simple class with two string fields.

I initially had this work just fine on .NET, but within Unity, I get a: ** Could not find type 'System.Collections.Generic.List`1[[ResServerLib.Data.WorldDescription, ResServerLib, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null]]'.*

EDIT

So I did further attemps

I tried to change to a List instead of the List , it works
I added a WorldDescription field directly to the payload (not in a List), it works

--> So it seems the issue is really about the List of WorldDescription, which at the moment is nothing more than:

 [Serializable]
     public class WorldDescription
     {
         public string worldName;
         public bool isAvailable;
 
         public WorldDescription(string worldName, bool isAvailable)
         {
             this.worldName = worldName;
             this.isAvailable = isAvailable;
         }
     }

I serialize with

          private byte[] PayloadToByteArray(Payload obj)
         {
             if (obj == null)
                 return null;
             BinaryFormatter binForm = new BinaryFormatter();
             binForm.Binder = new VersionDeserializationBinder();
 
             MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
             binForm.Serialize(ms, obj);
             return ms.ToArray();
         }

And I deserialize with:

         private static Payload ByteArrayToPayload(byte[] arrBytes)
         {
             try
             {
                 MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();
                 BinaryFormatter binForm = new BinaryFormatter();
                 binForm.Binder = new VersionDeserializationBinder();
 
                 memStream.Write(arrBytes, 0, arrBytes.Length);
                 memStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
 
                 Payload obj = (Payload)binForm.Deserialize(memStream);
 
                 return obj;
             }
             catch (Exception ex)
             {
                 Debug.WriteLine(" *****     " + ex.Message);
                 return null;
             }
         }

Originally, I didn't use the SerializationBinder, but read that Unity had issues indicating the correct type. This effectively worked when Serializing in Unity and Deserializing in the serverapplication (edit: actually, in that case, I was only sending a PayloadType without a List<> field), but Unity still can't Deserialize server data, throwing the error above.

The SerializationBinder is (taken from here)

  public sealed class VersionDeserializationBinder : SerializationBinder
         {
             public override Type BindToType(string assemblyName, string typeName)
             {
                 if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(assemblyName) && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(typeName))
                 {
                     Type typeToDeserialize = null;
                      assemblyName = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().FullName;
 
                     // The following line of code returns the type. 
                     //typeToDeserialize = Type.GetType(String.Format("{0}, {1}", typeName, assemblyName));
                     typeToDeserialize = GetType(typeName);
    
                     return typeToDeserialize;
                 }
 
                 return null;
             }

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Alright, so after trying this in every way possible, I still had an issue deserializing the list<> in Unity (or serializing it for that matter). It worked on my .net app that I use as a server.

I looked into other means of serialization, and I found Protobuf-net, which incidentally has a Unity-specific release. It's pretty simple to set up, and the serialization/deserialization code is simpler and faster than BinaryFormatter. More importantly, it works!!

         private byte[] PayloadToByteArray(Payload obj)
         {
             if (obj == null)
                 return null;
 
             using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
             {
                 Serializer.Serialize(ms, this);
                 return ms.ToArray();
             }
         }
 
         private static Payload ByteArrayToPayload(byte[] arrBytes)
         {
               using (MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream())
             {
                 memStream.Write(arrBytes, 0, arrBytes.Length);
                 memStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
                 return Serializer.Deserialize<Payload>(memStream);
             }
         }

Serialiazing/Deserializing list of custom class: Could not find type

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