Supported Formats

Serialize.NET currently supports the following serialization formats:

• PBON - best size and performance, not readable
• Bencoding - good size (except binary), good performance, somewhat readable
• JSON - good size (except binary), good performance, very readable
• XML - bloated size, good performance, readable

Typical usage might be to first use a readable encoding such as JSON during development and then switch to PBON for production.

Example encodings

See below for a comparison of the following object encoded in the supported formats.

class Person
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

Person person = new Person()
{
    Id = 1,
    Name = "Foo"
};

PBON (10 bytes)

7B-01-01-01-02-03-46-6F-6F-7D {.....Foo}

BEncode (16 bytes)

64-31-3A-31-69-31-65-31-3A-32-33-3A-46-6F-6F-65 d1:1i1e1:23:Fooe

JSON (17 bytes)

7B-22-31-22-3A-31-2C-22-32-22-3A-22-46-6F-6F-22-7D {"1":1,"2":"Foo"}

XML (101 bytes)

3C-6F-62-6A-65-63-74-3E <object>
3C-6D-65-6D-62-65-72-20 <member 
6B-65-79-3D-22-31-22-3E key="1">
3C-76-61-6C-75-65-3E-31 <value>1
3C-2F-76-61-6C-75-65-3E </value>
3C-2F-6D-65-6D-62-65-72 </member
3E-3C-6D-65-6D-62-65-72 ><member
20-6B-65-79-3D-22-32-22  key="2"
3E-3C-76-61-6C-75-65-3E ><value>
46-6F-6F-3C-2F-76-61-6C Foo</val
75-65-3E-3C-2F-6D-65-6D ue></mem
62-65-72-3E-3C-2F-6F-62 ber></ob
6A-65-63-74-3E          ject>

Benchmark Comparisons

Following are the serialized sizes of the objects used in the unit test benchmarks for comparison:

SimpleObject

• PBON - 411 bytes
• Bencode - 927 bytes
• JSON - 1,062 bytes
• XML - 3,526 bytes

ComplexObject

• PBON - 4,297 bytes
• Bencode - 9,562 bytes
• JSON - 11,044 bytes
• XML - 36,922 bytes