Serialization is the process of converting an object into a stream of bytes which is easily transferable over the network and storing its current state on any permanent storage media like file or database for later use. De-serialization is the reverse process of Serialization, where the stored object is taken and the original object is recreated.

.NET provides classes through its System.Runtime.Serialization namespaces that can be used for serializing and de-serializing objects.

Figure 1: Serialization and De-serialization

Serialization can be divided into following types:

·         Binary Serialization: Binary serialization allows the serialization of an object into a binary stream and restoration from a binary stream into an object.

·         XML Serialization: XML serialization allows the public properties and fields of an object to be reduced to an XML document that describes the publicly visible state of the object.

·         SOAP Serialization: SOAP serialization is similar to XML serialization in that the objects being serialized are persisted as XML.

·         Custom Serialization: If the default serialization classes are insufficient due to the requirements, then this can be customized by implementing the ISerializable interface.

We will be dealing only with Binary Serialization as it is used for serialization in databases. In .NET, this facility is provided by the BinaryFormatter class present in System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary namespace.