Angara.Serialization

A library that facilitates serialization on both .NET and JavaScript platforms and communication between them.
The library contains built-in serializers for a wide range of types and can easily be extended with serializers for user-defined types. Serialization formats are pluggable. The shipped implementation is based on JSON.

Example

Here is a simple example how object can be converted to JSON format and restored back.

Let's prepare a tuple of double array, integer array and string value.

open System
let x = [| 0.0; Math.PI / 6.0; 3.0 * Math.PI / 2.0  |]
let y = x |> Array.map (fun x -> sign(sin(x)))
let t = "sign(sin(x))", x, y

Next lines of code converts tuple t to a JSON format. Passing CoreSerializerResolver.Instance as a first argument means that built-in serializers will be used.

#r "Angara.Serialization.dll"
#r "Angara.Serialization.Json.dll"
open Angara.Serialization

let json = Json.FromObject(CoreSerializerResolver.Instance, t)

Text representation of resulting JSON is shown below. This JSON can be persisted to a file or transferred over network.

"{
  ":tuple<string,double array,int array>": [
    "sign(sin(x))",
    {
      ":double array": "AAAAAAAAAABlcy04UsHgP9IhM3982RJA"
    },
    {
      ":int array": "AAAAAAEAAAD/////"
    }
  ]
}"

We introduce special conventions to embed type information into serialized representation. Numeric arrays are converted to base64 representation in order to save their exact values and reduce serialized representation size. Angara.Serialization library has JavaScript component that parses and generates JSON conforming to these conventions.

Information about types is included into serialized representation. This allows to restore object without specifying it's exact type. Next snippet of code restores object from JSON and prints its type

let o = Json.ToObject<obj>(json, CoreSerializerResolver.Instance)
printfn "%A" (o.GetType())

Object is correctly restored as a tuple of two arrays and a string

System.Tuple`3[System.String,System.Double[],System.Int32[]]

It is more convenient to specify deserialized object type if you know it. Next single line of code restores tuple

let s',x',y' = 
    Json.ToObject<string * double[] * int[]>(json, CoreSerializerResolver.Instance)

Value of restored array y' is

[|0; 1; -1|]

You can find more concepts and information how to serialize user defined types in the next tutorial.

Contributing and copyright

The project is hosted on GitHub where you can report issues, fork the project and submit pull requests.

The library is available under Public Domain license, which allows modification and redistribution for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. For more information see the License file in the GitHub repository.

• Angara.Serialization
• Get libraries via NuGet
• Source Code on GitHub
• License
• Tutorials
• Serializing user-defined type