Not marked as serializable error when serializing a class

Question

I am serializing an structure by using BinaryFormatter using this code:

private void SerializeObject(string filename, SerializableStructure obje         


        

Answer 1

This almost alwas means you have an event (or other delegate - maybe a callback) somewhere in your object model, that is trying to be serialized. Add [NonSerialized] to any event-backing fields. If you are using a field-like event (the most likely kind), this is:

[field:NonSerialized]
public event SomeDelegateType SomeEventName;

Alternatively: most other serializers don't look at events/delegates, and provide better version-compatibility. Switching to XmlSerializer, JavaScriptSerializer, DataContractSerializer or protobuf-net (just 4 examples) would also solve this by the simple approach of not trying to do this (you almost never intend for events to be considered as part of a DTO).