Question

Code:

public static string Serialize<T>(IEnumerable<T> list)
{
    BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();

    using (MemoryStream m = new MemoryStream())
    {
        formatter.Serialize(m, list);
        m.Position = 0;
        return Convert.ToBase64String(m.ToArray());
    } 

}

public static T Deserialize<T>(string listData)
{
    BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();

    using (MemoryStream m = new MemoryStream())
    {
        return (IEnumerable<T>)formatter.Deserialize(m); //Problem is here
    }
}

Error:

Error   1   Cannot implicitly convert type
'System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<T>' to 'T'. An
explicit conversion exists (are you missing a cast?)

Answer 1

Change the return type from T to IEnumerable<T>. You also need to fill the memory stream with the string, for instance:

public static IEnumerable<T> Deserialize<T>(string listData)
{
    BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();

    using (MemoryStream m = new MemoryStream(Convert.FromBase64String(listData)))
    {
        return (IEnumerable<T>)formatter.Deserialize(m);
    }
}