Struct/Class to byte array and back again. How to do this?

TinyCLR OS
1

I have a struct/class with configuration data that I want to store in an EEPROM and also read it back out on power up.

How can I convert the structure to a byte array and back again? All of the stuff in a search is for the old NETMF solutions.

2

Do you absolutely need to use a struct?
If NOT you can use a class and use json serializer to convert to byte and back.

3

I just edited my post. I can convert the struct easily to a class.

Is there any sample for how to use the json serialiser?

4

This works, the docs version does not work…
but read that anyway to know what nugets you need

 public class Device
    {
        public int Id { get; set; }
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public string Ssid { get; set; }
        public string Password { get; set; }
        public string ApiUrl { get; set; }
        public bool IsTestLedOn { get; set; }
    }

public static byte[] Serialize(object data)
        {
            JToken json = JsonConverter.Serialize(data);
            string jsonString = json.ToString();
            byte[] jsonBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(jsonString);
            return jsonBytes;
        }

  public static Device Deserialize(byte[] data)
        {
            if (data.Length > 0)
            {
                string byteString = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(data);
                Device device = (Device)JsonConverter.DeserializeObject(byteString, typeof(Device));
                return device;
            }
            return null;
        }
5

I got something to work with a much simpler approach using Reflection.

To convert the configuration to the data stream I used this with data being a byte array.

data = Reflection.Serialize(configData, typeof(ConfigData));

To convert the byte stream back to the config data, I use this

configData = (ConfigData)Reflection.Deserialize(data, typeof(ConfigData));

The above works a charm. Thanks for the heads up.

1 Like
6

Dave is right - json is for interop and/or for preserving the data where a schema that might change over time. Serialization is better for save/restore on the same machine and with an unchanging schema.