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c#serializationdatacontractserializer
szMuzzyA
szMuzzyA

Reputation: 126

C# DataContractSerializer exception when Deserializing 'The data at the root level is invalid'

[SOLVED] There was an error deserializing the object of type 'Message'. The data at the root level is invalid

I have the following code for Serializing/Deserializing

    public static byte[] Serialize(object Object)
    {
        using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
        {
            DataContractSerializer serializer = new DataContractSerializer(Object.GetType());
            serializer.WriteObject(memoryStream, Object);
            return memoryStream.ToArray();
        }
    }

    public static Type Deserialize<Type>(byte[] SerializedData)
    {
        using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream(SerializedData))
        {
            DataContractSerializer serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(Type));
            return (Type)serializer.ReadObject(memoryStream);
        }
    }

This is the class I'm serializing

[DataContractAttribute]
public class Message
{
    public string MessageType = string.Empty;
    public string MessageData = string.Empty;
}

Here is how it is used



    void Send(string MessageType, string Data)
    {
        Message message = new Message();
        message.MessageType = MessageType;
        message.MessageData = Data;
        byte[] byteData = Serializer.Serialize(message); // SERIALIZE

        // Send the data
        stream.Write(byteData, 0, byteData.Length);
    }

    Message Receive()
    {
        stream.Read(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
        Message message = Serializer.Deserialize(bytes); // DESERIALIZE
        return message;
    }

I have tried several different things I have found on google from similar issues, but I cannot fix the issue. Is there something wrong with the way I'm serializing?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1511

Answers (1)

szMuzzyA
szMuzzyA

Reputation: 126

[SOLVED]

There were two issues. The first issue is [DataContractAttribute] need to be [Serializable]

[Serializable]
public class Message
{
    public string MessageType = string.Empty;
    public string MessageData = string.Empty;
}

Second is related to something not visible in the code above. The 'bytes' array was initialized to a size greater than the data received, causing the Deserializer to not work properly.

I just created a new data array with the appropriate size to pass to the Deserializer

Message Receive()
{
    int messageLength = stream.Read(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
    byte[] data = new byte[messageLength];
    Array.Copy(bytes, data, messageLength);

    Message message = Serializer.Deserialize(data); // DESERIALIZE
    return message;
}

Upvotes: 1

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