Unity Custom Class in Editor

Question

Hi, I have a problem with saving a custom class in my binary system.

I have posted it on Stackoverflow aswell: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66611904/unity-custom-class-in-editor

I have a problem with saving a custom class in my binary save system.

This is my SaveLoadManager.cs which does the binary saving:

 public static class SaveLoadManager 
 {
     private static string saveFileName = "/SpaceClicker.sav";
 
 
     public static bool Save(PlayerData data)
     {
         BinaryFormatter binaryFormatter = GetBinaryFormatter();
 
         FileStream stream = File.Create(Application.persistentDataPath + saveFileName);
 
         binaryFormatter.Serialize(stream, data);
 
         stream.Close();
 
         return true;
     }
 
     public static PlayerData Load()
     {
         if (!File.Exists(Application.persistentDataPath + saveFileName))
         {
             return null;
         }
 
         BinaryFormatter binaryFormatter = GetBinaryFormatter();
 
         FileStream stream = new FileStream(Application.persistentDataPath + saveFileName, FileMode.Open);
 
         try
         {
             PlayerData data = binaryFormatter.Deserialize(stream) as PlayerData;
             stream.Close();
             return data;
         }
         catch
         {
             Debug.LogErrorFormat("Failed to load file at {0}", Application.persistentDataPath + saveFileName);
             stream.Close();
             return null;
         }
     }
 
     private static BinaryFormatter GetBinaryFormatter()
     {
         BinaryFormatter binaryFormatter = new BinaryFormatter();
         return binaryFormatter;
     }

SaveLoadHandler.cs: In here I simply Save and Load.

In here is also my Custom Class "UpgradeClass" an my public variable factoryUpgradeClass which has the UpgradeClass.

 public PlayerData data;
 
     void Awake()
     {
         if (SaveLoadManager.Load() != null)
         {
             data = SaveLoadManager.Load();
         }
         
     }
 
     void Update()
     {
         SaveLoadManager.Save(data);
     }
 }
 
 [Serializable]
 public class UpgradeClass
 {
     public GameObject ob;
     public string upname;
 
     public bool bought;
 
     public UpgradeClass(GameObject ob, string upname, bool bought)
     {
         this.ob = ob;
         this.upname = upname;
         this.bought = bought;
     }
 }
 
 [Serializable]
 public class PlayerData
 {
    //Lots of values
    public List<UpgradeClass> factoryUpgradeClass;
 }

The Problem is when I start the game I get these 2 errors:
1. Error:

SerializationException: Type 'UnityEngine.GameObject' in Assembly 'UnityEngine.CoreModule, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' is not marked as serializable. System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.InternalGetSerializableMembers (System.RuntimeType type) (at :0) System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices+<>c_DisplayClass9_0.b0 (System.Runtime.Serialization.MemberHolder ) (at :0) System.Collections.Concurrent.ConcurrentDictionary`2[TKey,TValue].GetOrAdd (TKey key, System.Func`2[T,TResult] valueFactory) (at :0) System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.GetSerializableMembers (System.Type type, System.Runtime.Serialization.StreamingContext context) (at :0) System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitMemberInfo () (at :0) System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitSerialize (System.Object obj, System.Runtime.Serialization.ISurrogateSelector surrogateSelector, System.Runtime.Serialization.StreamingContext context, System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.SerObjectInfoInit serObjectInfoInit, System.Runtime.Serialization.IFormatterConverter converter, System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter objectWriter, System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationBinder binder) (at :0) System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.Serialize (System.Object obj, System.Runtime.Serialization.ISurrogateSelector surrogateSelector, System.Runtime.Serialization.StreamingContext context, System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.SerObjectInfoInit serObjectInfoInit, System.Runtime.Serialization.IFormatterConverter converter, System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter objectWriter, System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationBinder binder) (at :0) System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.Write (System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo objectInfo, System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.NameInfo memberNameInfo, System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.NameInfo typeNameInfo) (at :0) System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.Serialize (System.Object graph, System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.Header[] inHeaders, System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.__BinaryWriter serWriter, System.Boolean fCheck) (at :0) System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Serialize (System.IO.Stream serializationStream, System.Object graph, System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.Header[] headers, System.Boolean fCheck) (at :0) System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Serialize (System.IO.Stream serializationStream, System.Object graph, System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.Header[] headers) (at :0) System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Serialize (System.IO.Stream serializationStream, System.Object graph) (at :0) SaveLoadManager.Save (PlayerData data) (at Assets/Scripts/DataSaving/SaveLoadManager.cs:22) SaveLoadHandler.Update () (at Assets/Scripts/Handlers/SaveLoadHandler.cs:33)

2.Error: IOException: Sharing violation on path C:\Users\mmorp\AppData\LocalLow\DefaultCompany\SpaceClicker\SpaceClicker.sav System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, System.IO.FileMode mode, System.IO.FileAccess access, System.IO.FileShare share, System.Int32 bufferSize, System.Boolean anonymous, System.IO.FileOptions options) (at :0) System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, System.IO.FileMode mode, System.IO.FileAccess access, System.IO.FileShare share, System.Int32 bufferSize) (at :0) (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.IO.FileStream..ctor(string,System.IO.FileMode,System.IO.FileAccess,System.IO.FileShare,int) System.IO.File.Create (System.String path, System.Int32 bufferSize) (at :0) System.IO.File.Create (System.String path) (at :0) SaveLoadManager.Save (PlayerData data) (at Assets/Scripts/DataSaving/SaveLoadManager.cs:20) SaveLoadHandler.Update () (at Assets/Scripts/Handlers/SaveLoadHandler.cs:33)

It refers to the line: "SaveLoadManger.Save(data)". The result is that the savefile cannot be loaded.

I searched a lot and maybe I need to do a custom editor? Can anyone help me out on that?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

First of all:

I hope it is ok to just post a link? I just didn't want to post it twice.

No, that's not ok since answering a question that was asked on a third party website that could go down or the question over there could get deleted or changed it makes no sense to ask such questions, at all. We already had people asking questions here that had the essential bit of the question in images that were hosted on free hosters like imgur or tinypic. All those image links are dead now and the question useless.

So please copy your question over here into your question. You can edit your question at any time. Though please do keep the link to the SO question.

About your problem: Well you have several problems here. I'll try to state them in the order of "severity".

First of all your main issue is that your save data contains references to GameObjects. That is not possible at all and the reason why you get the first exception you mentioned. The BinaryFormatter can only serialize a whole object tree that includes all referenced instances. However you can not serialize a GameObject like that, at all.

The second exception you get is the result of the first one and the fact that you try to save your data once every frame. Since the Serialize call of the BF causes an exception your "SaveLoadManager.Save" method is terminated on the point which of course bubbles up to the Update method which is also terminated at the point. The result is that you never closed the filestream you created. Since the next frame you immediately try to save it again, you essentially try to open another file stream to the same file which is already open, so you get a sharing violation of the OS. You used a try catch in your load method but not in your save method. That's bad design ^^. Also you should always use a using statement for such things as it takes care of closing the stream no matter what.

Finally I highly recommend to stay away from the BinaryFormatter as Microsoft itself recommends. The BinaryFormatter is part of the remoting protocol of .NET and is meant to serialize parameters to RPC calls. It was never meant to serialize user data to files. It's also quite restrictive and verbose. Any change in the layout of your save class would break existing save files.

I highly recommend you aim for a human readable save format like json as it makes debugging easier. If you really want a binary format, you better roll your own using the BinaryWriter / BinaryReader. The resulting format would be much smaller and your code can decide what data you want to store and what not.

Since the data you want to save looks like it's a list of upgrades the user can buy, you usually have defined this list of upgrades in your project. The only information you want / need to store is if the user has bought it or not. If the list is more or less fixed you would only need an array of boolean values since the indices would usually not change. However it's usually better to store the upgrade name bundled with the "bought state" so you can individually react to removed or later added upgrades. At no point do you need or want to store the GameObject reference in a save file (which as I said is not possible and would not make any sense).

Unity Custom Class in Editor

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