Class Deep Copy. But...

[EFileTahi-A]

But from a class that is inside another class.

 

[serializable]
public class c_kaprical
{
   //my objects
[color="Red"]    [serializable] //<- this does not help.[/color]
   public class c_solarSystem
   {
       //my objects

       public class c_kaprical.c_solarSystem Clone(c_kaprical.c_solarSystem newClone)
       {
           MemoryStream m = new MemoryStream();
           BinaryFormatter b = new BinaryFormatter();
           b.Serialize(m, newClone);
           m.Position = 0;
           return (c_kaprical.c_solarSystem)b.Deserialize(m);
       }
   }
}

 

This gives me an error saying that the class c_kaprical.c_solarSystem is not refered as Serializable. I've tried to tag c_solarSystem also with [serializable]

This works well for c_kaprical class but for c_kaprical.c_solarSystem... :(

 

Any suggestions? I would love to keep this structure without removing the sub-classes from the main class. I just want to perform a deep copy of a given class despite of its method!

 

Thanks

Edited December 4, 2011 by EFileTahi-A

[snarfblam]

Ideally, the framework would include a DeepCopy function. The needed functionality is already implemented in the BinaryFormatter class.

 

If this is a simple class, rolling your own deep copy function could be as simple as manually copying objects and assigning them to fields. And, as much as I am a champion of mutable types, using immutable types would make cloning trivial, as long as it doesn't cause the GC to thrash.

 

As to the question, I don't seem to be having the same problem with the run-time error. This is the code I used, which worked fine.

 

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
   class Program
   {
       static void Main(string[] args) {
           var s = new test.c_kaprical.c_solarSystem();
           var y = test.c_kaprical.c_solarSystem.Clone(s);
       }

   }
}

namespace test
{
   using System;
   using System.IO;
   using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;
   
   [serializable]
   public class c_kaprical
   {
       //my objects
       [serializable] //<- this does not help.
       public class c_solarSystem
       {
           //my objects

           public static c_kaprical.c_solarSystem Clone(c_kaprical.c_solarSystem newClone) {
               MemoryStream m = new MemoryStream();
               BinaryFormatter b = new BinaryFormatter();
               b.Serialize(m, newClone);
               m.Position = 0;
               return (c_kaprical.c_solarSystem)b.Deserialize(m);
           }
       }
   }
}

Note that I changed "class" to "static" on the Clone method. I'm guessing that's just a transcribing error. Other than that, everything seems to be spiffy, but I'm working with a skeleton class here. If any of your fields are declared with non-serializable types, you will still get the error you're seeing.

 

   [serializable]
   public class c_kaprical
   {
       //my objects
       [serializable] //<- this does not help.
       public class c_solarSystem
       {
[color="Red"]            SomethingElse anObject; // <-- ERROR: Field is of a non-serializable type!
[/color]
           public static c_kaprical.c_solarSystem Clone(c_kaprical.c_solarSystem newClone) {
               // ...            
           }
       }

       // Not serializable
       class SomethingElse
       {
       }
   }

So my best guess: something in your object tree isn't serializable. The exception message should help you figure out what is causing the problem. The above code gave me this error:

 

Type '

test.c_kaprical+SomethingElse

' in Assembly 'ConsoleApplication1, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' is not marked as serializable.

[EFileTahi-A]

Found the problem!

 

I was using two array lists containing a class: ArrayList<c_star> & ArrayList<c_celestialBody> inside the class c_solarSystem. They were NOT marked as Serializable. I simply added the tag [serializable] to each one of them to make the whole thing work. All classes (c_star, c_solarSystem & c_celestialBody) are inside the main c_kaprical class (just a side note, kaprical is the name of the galaxy, yet the name of the game).

 

I could only achieve this thanks to your superb explanation.

Thanks! Once more...

Edited December 4, 2011 by EFileTahi-A