Question

Protobuf-Net 2.0.0.480 can serialize structs using either the DataContract or ProtoContract attribute, and is doing so just fine.

However, Serializer.PrepareSerializer<MyStruct>() claims that MyStruct must be a reference type. Why does this limitation exist?

Answer 1

Fair observation! This is a hangover from v1, where the API only supported class. The v2 implementation adds RuntimeTypeModel, and forwards the old Serializer.* API onto RuntimeTypeMode.Default.*.

In this case, the answer is simple: because I didn’t remove the where T : class constraint that existed from v1 days. It will be removed in a future build.

For now, you can also do this via:

RuntimeTypeModel.Default[type].CompileInPlace();