Serialize/Deserialize an object for passing through Windows Azure Queue
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;
// Alternative (not related to this code, but in case you want to serialize to XML
// instead): http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/csharplanguage/thread/5d08bc28-5b61-4c5a-8c4b-4665b1c929ea/
// Usage example
// NOTE: The Windows Azure CloudQueueMessage constructor accepts either a string
// or a byte array. If a byte array is passed in, it is Base64 encoded.
// Base64 encoding results in approx a 1/3 payload size penalty (so the
// payload is 4/3 of size of binary). The maximum size of single message for a
// Windows Azure Storage queue is 64 KB. (Versus 256 KB for ServiceBus queues.)
//
// The AppSpecificMessage class and the GetAppSpecificMessage and CreateCloudQueueMessage
// helper functions serve to illustrate how to create simple helpers that use the
// more generic classes shown below.
public CloudQueueMessage CreateCloudQueueMessage(AppSpecificMessage msg)
{
return new CloudQueueMessage(ByteArraySerializer<AppSpecificMessage>.Serialize(msg));
}
public AppSpecificMessage GetAppSpecificMessage(CloudQueueMessage cloudQueueMessage)
{
return ByteArraySerializer<AppSpecificMessage>.
Deserialize(cloudQueueMessage.AsBytes);
}
namespace DevPartners.Azure
{
public static class ByteArraySerializer<T>
{
public static byte[] Serialize(T m)
{
var ms = new MemoryStream();
try
{
var formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
formatter.Serialize(ms, m);
return ms.ToArray();
}
finally
{
ms.Close();
}
}
public static T Deserialize(byte[] byteArray)
{
var ms = new MemoryStream(byteArray);
try
{
var formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
return (T)formatter.Deserialize(ms);
}
finally
{
ms.Close();
}
}
}
}