What is serialization in C#.NET?

Serialization converts objects into a byte stream and brings it to a form that it can be written on stream. This is done to save it to memory, file or database.

Serialization can be performed as −

Binary Serialization

All the members, even members that are read-only, are serialized.

XML Serialization

It serializes the public fields and properties of an object into XML stream conforming to a specific XML Schema definition language document.

Let us see an example. Firstly set the stream −

FileStream fstream = new FileStream("d:\
ew.txt", FileMode.OpenOrCreate);
BinaryFormatter formatter=new BinaryFormatter();

Now create an object of the class and call the constructor which has three parameters −

Employee emp = new Employee(030, "Tom", “Operations”);

Perform serialization −

formatter.Serialize(fStream, emp);