Question

I have this code:

public static void SerializeRO(Stream stream, ReplicableObject ro) {
    MemoryStream serializedObjectStream = new MemoryStream();
    Formatter.Serialize(serializedObjectStream, ro);

    MemoryStream writeStream = new MemoryStream();
    BinaryWriter bw = new BinaryWriter(writeStream);

    bw.Write(serializedObjectStream.Length);
    serializedObjectStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
    serializedObjectStream.WriteTo(writeStream);
    serializedObjectStream.Close();

    writeStream.WriteTo(stream);

    bw.Close();
}

The line writeStream.WriteTo(stream); never finishes. The program gets to that line and won’t progress.

stream is always a NetworkStream. I’ve checked and I think it’s a valid object (at least it’s not null nor disposed).

So what’s going on?

Answer 1

I tried your code – writing to a FileStream – and I always get zero bytes written to the stream. I don’t know why WriteTo would block on a NextWorkStream when there’s nothing to write, but that could be a problem

When I extract the bytes from the MemoryStream and write them directly to stream everything works e.g. (I’m creating a binary formatter in the routine, it seems you already have a formatter).

public static void SerializeRO(Stream stream, object ro)
{
    MemoryStream serializedObjectStream = new MemoryStream();
    var f = new BinaryFormatter();
    f.Serialize(serializedObjectStream, ro);

    MemoryStream writeStream = new MemoryStream();
    BinaryWriter bw = new BinaryWriter(writeStream);

    var bytes = serializedObjectStream.ToArray();
    bw.Write(bytes.Length);
    bw.Write(bytes);

    var bwBytes = writeStream.ToArray();

    stream.Write(bwBytes, 0, bwBytes.Length);

    bw.Close();
}

However I’d do it like this with one MemoryStream and writing directly to stream, unless there’s something I don’t know about NetworkStream (this will of course close stream which may not be what you want)

public static void SerializeRO(Stream stream, object ro)
{
    byte[] allBytes;
    using (var serializedObjectStream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        var f = new BinaryFormatter();
        f.Serialize(serializedObjectStream, ro);
        allBytes = serializedObjectStream.ToArray();
    }
    using (var bw = new BinaryWriter(stream))
    {
        bw.Write(allBytes.Length);
        bw.Write(allBytes);
    }
}

Version that won’t close your NetworkStream (just don’t put the binary writer in a using statement or Close() it)

public static void SerializeRO(Stream stream, object ro)
{
    byte[] allBytes;
    using (var serializedObjectStream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        var f = new BinaryFormatter();
        f.Serialize(serializedObjectStream, ro);
        allBytes = serializedObjectStream.ToArray();
    }
    var bw = new BinaryWriter(stream)
    bw.Write(allBytes.Length);
    bw.Write(allBytes);
}