Question

I am trying to convert class to byte but not worked.

I receive a byte[] (b) with zero length . why ?

void start()
{

    Item item = new Item();
    item.files.Add(@"test");
    byte[] b = ObjectToByteArray(item);  // b will have zero length 

}


    [Serializable]
    public class Item : ISerializable
    {
        public Item()
        {
            files = new List<string>();
            Exclude = false;
            CleanEmptyFolder = false;
        }
        public List<string> files;
        public string MusicProfileName;
        public bool Exclude;

        #region ISerializable Members

        public void GetObjectData(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context)
        {
            info.AddValue("files", files);
            info.AddValue("MusicProfileName", MusicProfileName);
            info.AddValue("Exclude", Exclude);
        }

        #endregion
    }

    public byte[] ObjectToByteArray(object _Object)
    {
        using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
        {
            // serialize object 
            var formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
            formatter.Serialize(stream, _Object);

            // get a byte array
            var bytes = new byte[stream.Length];
            using (BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(stream))
            {
                bytes = br.ReadBytes(Convert.ToInt32(stream.Length));
            }

            return bytes;
        }

    }

Answer 1

Try using MemoryStream.ToArray instead of trying to read from the MemoryStream with a BinaryReader:

return stream.ToArray();

The problem is that you aren’t resetting the stream, so it’s trying to read from the end instead of the beginning. You could also seek back to the beginning of the stream:

stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);