Question

I would like to migrate me previously serialized objects in database to new schema.

My previous object.

Public interface MyReport
{

    string Id { get; set;}

    string Name { get; set;}

    Dictionary<string, string> PropColl { get; set;}
}

But for some reasons we had to make interface changes

Public interface IMarkme
{
}

Public interface MyReport<T> where T : Imarkme
{

    string Id { get; set;}

    string Name { get; set;}

    T ExtendedProp { get; set;}
}

Public NewProp : Imarkme
{
    /// some code here 
}

So as you can see my interface has been modified and I would like to migrate my serialized objects which were serialized based on MyReport to MyReport
Can someone provide me some input as what kind of utility I should aim to write which can help me achieve migrating my serialized object to new modified interface version.

Thanks,
AG

Answer 1

I have actually done something similar recently, where I have created a simple console application to be able to transform some serialized objects from one version to another. I have simply used both versions of dlls and reflection to read and write the values of different properties. Probably you’ll find this helpful as an inspiration 😉

static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        object test;

        AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolve += domain_AssemblyResolve;


        using (var con = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
        {
            using (var cmd = new SqlCommand())
            {
                cmd.CommandText = "select top 1 Data_Blob from dbo.Serialized";
                cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
                cmd.Connection = con;

                con.Open();
                var blob = (byte[])cmd.ExecuteScalar();

                var bf = new BinaryFormatter();
                var stream = new MemoryStream(blob);
                bf.AssemblyFormat = FormatterAssemblyStyle.Full;
                test = bf.Deserialize(stream);
            }
        }

        var objNewVersion = Activator.CreateInstance(Type.GetType("ObjectGraphLibrary.Test, ObjectGraphLibrary, Version=1.0.0.10, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=33c7c38cf0d65826"));


        var oldType = test.GetType();
        var newType = objNewVersion.GetType();

        var oldName = (string) oldType.GetProperty("Name").GetValue(test, null);
        var oldAge = (int) oldType.GetProperty("Age").GetValue(test, null);

        newType.GetProperty("Name").SetValue(objNewVersion, oldName, null);
        newType.GetProperty("DateOfBirth").SetValue(objNewVersion, DateTime.Now.AddYears(-oldAge), null);


        Console.Read();
    }

    static Assembly domain_AssemblyResolve(object sender, ResolveEventArgs args)
    {
        var assName = new AssemblyName(args.Name);

        var uriBuilder = new UriBuilder(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase);
        var assemblyPath = Uri.UnescapeDataString(uriBuilder.Path);
        var codeBase = Path.GetDirectoryName(assemblyPath);

        var assPath = Path.Combine(codeBase, string.Format("old\\{0}.{1}.{2}.{3}\\{4}.dll", assName.Version.Major,
                                                 assName.Version.Minor, assName.Version.Build,
                                                 assName.Version.Revision, assName.Name));

        return File.Exists(assPath) ? Assembly.LoadFile(assPath) : null;
    }