We have been using BinarySerialization with our C# app, but the size and complexity of the classes which need to be serialized results in sloooooow (de)serialization, and large files.
We suspect that we should just write our own custom serializers; but protobuf-net claims significant speed and size advantages over standard .Net binary serialization, and may be easier to add to our app than a large number of bespoke serializers.
Before spending significant time and effort trying to get it to work for us, I would love to know whether there are any deal-breakers. We are using properties defined with interfaces, generic lists of abstract sub-classes, custom bit flag enums, etc etc etc. What would stop protobuf-net working for us?
protobuf-net does what it can to adhere to the core protobuf spec, and then some (for example, it includes inheritance), however:
ICustomeretc); I’m working on getting this improved in v2If there is some limited example of what you want to serialize, I’ll happily take a look to see if it is likely to work (I’m the author).