Question

I’m switching from InProc session to SQL server session. Currently, my session object looks like this:

public class UserSession{

  public string TheStrings {get;set;}
  public int TheInts {get;set;}

  public List<MyObjectModel> ListOfObjects {get;set;}

}

It basically holds strings, ints and several lists of objects. What I do is store this object in the session and then when I need to access the session, I can write UserSession.TheStrings.

Now that I’m cconverting this to SQL session, serialization comes in play. Do I need to add the [serializable] attribute only to the entire class or do I also need to add it to the class definition of all the MyObjectModels as well?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I am pretty sure it will serialize by default as long as everything in your objects are simple types.

SerializableAttribute Class

Apply the SerializableAttribute attribute to a type to indicate that
instances of this type can be serialized. The common language runtime
throws SerializationException if any type in the graph of objects
being serialized does not have the SerializableAttribute attribute
applied.

Apply the SerializableAttribute attribute even if the class also
implements the ISerializable interface to control the serialization
process.

All the public and private fields in a type that are marked by the
SerializableAttribute are serialized by default, unless the type
implements the ISerializable interface to override the serialization
process. The default serialization process excludes fields that are
marked with the NonSerializedAttribute attribute. If a field of a
serializable type contains a pointer, a handle, or some other data
structure that is specific to a particular environment, and cannot be
meaningfully reconstituted in a different environment, then you might
want to apply the NonSerializedAttribute attribute to that field.