KE
  • dotNet Web 3.0
  • Engineering Management
    • Process Planning (SDLC)
      • Software development process
      • Basics of SDLC models
      • Scrum
      • Kanban
      • Scrum vs Kanban: applicability
      • Scrumban
    • Estimation
      • Scope Concept
      • Estimates, Targets, and Commitments
      • Overestimate vs Underestimate
      • Decomposition and Recomposition
      • Analogy-based estimations
      • Estimating in Agile
  • Requirements
    • Software Requirements Engineering
      • Requirement definition
      • Levels of Requirements
      • Most common requirements risks
      • Characteristics of Excellent Requirements
      • Benefits from a High-Quality Requirements Process
      • Root Causes of Project Success and Failure
  • Design
    • OOD
      • Abstraction
      • Encapsulation
      • Inheritance vs Aggregation
      • Modularity
      • Polymorphism
      • Abstraction Qualities (cohesion, coupling, etc)
      • Types vs. Classes
      • Separation of concerns principle
      • SOLID
      • Design Patterns
        • Structural patterns
        • Creational patterns
        • Behavioral patterns
      • Most often used design patterns
      • Software Architecture Patterns (structure, pros & cons)
      • Inversion of Control Containers and the Dependency Injection pattern
      • Domain-Driven Design patterns
      • Anti-patterns
    • DB Design
      • Relational Terminology: Entities
      • Relational terminology: Attributes
      • Relational terminology: Records (Tuples)
      • Relationships (One-to-One, One-to-Many)
      • Understanding ER notation
      • Understanding normalization concept
      • Data Integrity
    • Modeling
      • UML: Basic Diagram Types
      • UML: Use Case Diagram (Essentials)
      • UML: Class Diagram (Essentials)
      • Entity Relationship Diagrams
      • Data Flow Diagrams
    • Security
      • Information security concepts
      • Access Control Lists (ACLs)
      • Access Control Models
      • .NET Cryptography Model
      • ASP.NET Identity
      • OWASP Top 10
      • Cross-Site Request Forgery (XSRF)
      • Protecting against cross-site scripting attacks (XSS)
      • Protecting against buffer overrun attacks
      • Protecting against SQL-injection attacks
      • CSRF/XSRF protection
    • Algorithms
      • Algorithms complexity (understanding, big O notation, complexity of common algorithms)
      • Array sorting methods (bubble sort, quick sort, merge sort)
      • Tree structure (construction, traversal)
      • Binary search algorithm
      • Hash table (creating, collisions)
      • Stack, queue, linked list (construction, understanding, usage)
  • Construction Core
    • Programming language
      • Declare namespaces, classes, interfaces, static and instance class members
      • Types casting
      • Value and reference types. Class vs Struct usage.
      • Properties and automatic properties
      • Structured Exception Handling, Exception filters
      • Collections and Generics
      • Dictionaries. Comparison of Dictionaries
      • Building enumerable types
      • Building cloneable objects
      • Building comparable types
      • Nullable types
      • Delegates, events and lambdas
      • Indexers and operator overloading
      • Anonymous types
      • Extension methods. Practices.
      • Custom Type Conversions (implicit/explicit keywords)
      • Strings and StringBuilder. String concatenation practices. String Interpolation
      • Serialization
      • System.IO namespace
      • LINQ to Objects
      • General Coding conventions for C#
      • Static Using Statement
      • Type Reflection
      • Custom attributes
      • Dispose and Finalizable patterns
      • Garbage collection
      • .Net Diagnostics
      • Implementing logging
      • Exception handling guidelines
      • Regular Expressions
      • Span<T> struct
      • C# - What's new?
      • .NET Standard overview
    • Concurrency
      • Understand differences between Concurrency vs Multi-threading vs Asynchronous
      • Concurrency: An Overview
      • Async basics
      • Task Parallelism
      • Basic Synchronization in C#
      • Deadlock problem
      • QueueBackgroundWorkItem or IHostedService for .NET Core
      • How to run Background Tasks in ASP.NET
    • Refactoring
      • Refactoring Concept (what/when/why)
      • Smells Catalog and possible re-factorings
      • Moving Features Between Objects (basic)
      • Organizing Data (basic)
      • Composing Methods (basic)
      • Simplifying Conditional Expressions (basic)
      • Making Method Calls Simpler
      • Dealing with Generalization
    • Product deploying, software installation
      • Create, configure, and publish a web package (.NET Web Profile)
      • Publishing Web Services
      • Manage packages by using NuGet, NPM and Bower
    • Networking
      • Understanding networks: layers and protocols
      • Basic understanding of TCP/IP model and protocols
      • Defining internet, intranet and VPN
      • Basics of Firewalls and DMZ
      • Application layer protocols basics (HTTP, FTP, Telnet)
      • Understanding HTTP and WWW
      • Basic troubleshooting tools (ICMP, ping, traceroute)
      • Client/Server model
      • Sockets, IP and port addressing
      • Using proxy server
      • File transfer services: FTP, TFTP
      • Name resolution services: DNS, whois
      • Remote access services: Telnet, SSH, rdesktop, VNC
      • The basic difference between HTTP and HTTPS protocols
  • Construction Web
    • Web server applications
      • ASP.NET Core
        • Application startup
        • Middleware
        • Working with Static Files
        • Routing
        • Error Handling
        • Globalization and localization
        • Configuration
        • Logging
        • File Providers
        • Dependency Injection
        • Working with Multiple Environments
        • Hosting
        • Managing Application State
        • Request Features
      • ASP.NET Core MVC
        • MVC basics (Model, View, Controller, DI)
        • Model binding and validation
        • View (Razor compilation, Layout, Tag Helpers, Partial Views, DI, View components)
        • Controllers (Route to actions, File uploads)
      • Security and Identity (concepts understanding)
        • Authentication
        • Using identity
        • Authorization with roles
      • Bundle and Minify assets
      • Develop ASP.NET Core MVC apps
      • Advanced topics for ASP.NET Core MVC
        • Application model
        • Filters
        • Areas
        • Application Parts
        • Custom Model Building
        • IActionConstraint
      • Host and deploy ASP.NET Core
      • Migrate from ASP.NET to ASP.NET Core
      • Troubleshoot ASP.NET Core projects
      • Open Web Interface for .NET (OWIN)
      • Web server implementations in ASP.NET Core
    • Web Services
      • REST
      • ASP.NET Web API
        • Routing
        • Configuration
        • Basic error handling
      • Web API-based services
      • Web API Security
      • Token based security
      • SingalR
      • Serialization Frameworks
      • Implement caching
      • gRPC on ASP.NET Core
      • API versioning
      • API documentation
    • Microservices and Cloud
      • Microservices architecture
      • Dockerize a .NET Core application
      • Development workflow for Docker apps
    • JavaScript, HTML, CSS
      • JavaScript: Variables
      • JavaScript: Data types and types conversion
      • JavaScript: Operators
      • JavaScript: Control and Loop constructions
      • JavaScript: Functions, Execution Context and Variables scopes
      • JavaScript: Arrays
      • JavaScript: JS in WebBrowser and basic DOM manipulations
      • HTML: Basic elements
      • CSS: Simple Style rules
      • CSS: selectors
      • Box model
      • HTML: Standards and Browser compatibility
      • HTML: Page Layouts with divs
      • HTML: Frames
      • CSS: Elements positioning and layering
      • CSS: Tables properties
      • CSS: Flexbox
      • Different storage
      • JavaScript: Event Understanding (propagation, capturing, attach/detach)
      • JavaScript: Closure
      • AJAX/JSON
      • Ecma script 6: OOP
      • Promise
      • Strict mode of javascript
    • JavaScript Frameworks
      • Selecting elements
      • Operating on collection
      • Manipulating with elements, working with properties, attributes and data
      • Events
      • animation and effects
      • utilities and Ajax
      • SPA (SINGLE PAGE APPLICATIONS)
      • EcmaScript 6
      • UI frameworks basics:
      • NPM basics:
      • React basics
  • Construction DB
    • SQL
      • Tables, relationships, keys, constraints understanding
      • DDL, DML, DCL understanding
      • SQL data types
      • SQL operators, functions
      • Data manipulation (insert, update, delete)
      • Retrieving data (simple select statement)
      • Joins understanding
      • Creating, modifying, removing database objects
      • Aggregations (ORDER BY, GROUP BY, HAVING, SUM, COUNT, AVG, etc)
      • Combining the results of multiple queries (UNION, EXCEPT, INTERSECT, MINUS, subqueries)
      • Sessions, transactions, locks
      • Isolation levels understanding
      • Implementing stored procedures, user-defined functions, triggers
      • Cursors
    • Data Access Layer
      • Manage connection strings and objects
      • Working with data providers
      • Connect to a data source by using a generic data access interface
      • Handle and diagnose database connection exceptions
      • Manage exceptions when selecting, modifying data
      • Build command objects and query data from data sources
      • Retrieve data source by using the DataReader
      • Manage data by using the DataAdapter and TableAdapter
      • Updating data
      • Entity Framework
        • Query data sources by using EF
        • Code First to existing DB
        • Entity Data Modeling Fundamentals
        • Querying Data
        • Data modification
  • Verification
    • Code Quality
      • MSDN: Guidelines for Names
      • SDO Best Practices Catalog - Coding Standards
      • SDO Best Practices Catalog - Code Review Process
      • SDO Best Practices Catalog - Automatic Code Inspection
      • Automated coding standards enforcement (StyleCop, Resharper)
      • Code Reviews and Toolset
      • Use Work Items (TODO, BUG etc.)
      • Preemptive Error Detection
      • Desirable characteristics of a design (minimal complexity, ease of maintenance, minimal connectednes
      • Creating high quality classes
      • Creating high quality methods
      • Guidelines for initializing variables
      • Exceptions and error handling techniques
      • Best practices of working with data types
      • Code commenting practices
    • Automated Testing (principles, patterns, and practices)
      • Software testing basic concepts
      • Software testing concept
      • Test Case
      • Test Suite
      • Test Plan
      • Testing Levels
      • Naming standards for unit tests
      • Types of test doubles (Stub, Mock, Spy, Fake, Dummy)
      • Basic coverage criteria
      • Testing concepts (Unit vs Functional vs Integration)
      • Goals of Unit Testing, What Makes a Test Valuable?
      • Styles of Unit Testing (Output / State / Collaboration)
      • Good unit test properties
      • F.I.R.S.T Principles of unit testing
      • Test Pyramid concept
      • Testing Pyramid, Agile Testing Pyramid, Diamond
      • Breaking the dependency, Interaction testing
      • Strategies for isolating the database in tests
      • Test smells and how to avoid
      • Test Organization patterns
      • Fixture setup patterns
      • Test double patterns
      • Feature-driven development (FDD)
      • Behavior-driven development (BDD)
      • Test-driven development (TDD)
      • Acceptance testing, Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)
      • Continuous testing
    • Automated Testing (Frameworks, Tools, Libraries)
      • .NET unit test frameworks overview
      • .NET Mocking Frameworks, a comparison
      • xUnit
        • Primary test framework attributes
        • Asserts
        • Exception Handling in Unit Tests
        • Skipping Tests
        • Initialization and Cleanup (Assembly, Class, Test)
        • Data-driven Tests
      • NSubstitute
        • Mocking Method Calls (Using Mock Object, Return Values, Argument Matching)
        • Behavior Verification (Method Was/Not Called, a Specific Number of Times, Getter/Setter Was Called)
        • Throwing exceptions
        • Raising Events from Mock Objects
        • Returning Different Results for Sequential Calls
      • AutoFixture
      • EF Core InMemory test
      • Integration tests in ASP.NET Core
      • Isolating database data in integration tests
      • Test ASP.NET Core MVC apps
  • Configuration Management
    • Product builds and Continuous Integration
      • Automated build concept
      • Dotnet cli
      • CI/CD Basic concepts
    • Managing Versions
      • Fundamental concepts: revisions, working copy, repository, branch, baseline, trunk
      • Versioning Models
      • Distributed Version Control basics
      • Distributed systems advantages and weak sides
      • VCS Management life-cycle on (one of) major tools (clone, commit, update, revert, merge, resolve, et
      • Branching/Merging strategies
      • Blaming (annotate)
      • Revision graph/log actions (Git)
      • Integrating with Issue Tracking Systems
      • Source control Best Practices
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • What are the applications of Data Serialization?
  • Data Serialization formats
  • Comparing serialization formats?
  • Serialization Frameworks
  1. Construction Web
  2. Web Services

Serialization Frameworks

Serialization is the process of converting the state of an object into a form that can be persisted or transported. The complement of serialization is deserialization, which converts a stream into an object. Together, these processes allow data to be easily stored and transferred.

What are the applications of Data Serialization?

Serialization allows a program to save the state of an object and recreate it when needed. Its common uses are:

  • Persisting data onto files – happens mostly in language-neutral formats such as CSV or XML. However, most languages allow objects to be serialized directly into binary using APIs such as the Serializable interface in Java, fstreamclass in C++, or Pickle module in Python.

  • Storing data into Databases – when program objects are converted into byte streams and then stored into DBs, such as in Java JDBC.

  • Transferring data through the network – such as web applications and mobile apps passing on objects from client to server and vice versa.

  • Remote Method Invocation (RMI) – by passing serialized objects as parameters to functions running on a remote machine as if invoked on a local machine. This data can be transmitted across domains through firewalls.

  • Sharing data in a Distributed Object Model – when programs written in different languages (running on diverse platforms) need to share object data over a distributed network using frameworks such as COM and CORBA. However, SOAP, REST and other web services have replaced these applications now.

Data Serialization formats

Text-based formats:

  • XML (Extensible Markup Language) - Nested textual format. Human-readable and editable. Schema based validation. Used in metadata applications, web services data transfer, web publishing.

  • CSV (Comma-Separated Values) - Table structure with delimiters. Human-readable textual data. Opens as spreadsheet or plaintext. Used as plaintext Database.

  • JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) - Short syntax textual format with limited data types. Human-readable. Derived from JavaScript data formats. No need of a separate parser (like XML) since they map to JavaScript objects. Can be fetched with an XMLHttpRequest call. No direct support for DATE data type. All data is dynamically processed. Popular format for web API parameter passing. Mobile apps use this extensively for user interaction and database services.

  • YAML (YAML Ain't Markup Language) - Lightweight text format. Human-readable. Supports comments and thus easily editable. Superset of JSON. Supports complex data types. Maps easily to native data structures. Used in configuration settings, document headers, Apps with need for MySQL style self-references in relational data.

Binary formats:

  • BSON (Binary JSON) - Created and internally used by MongoDB. Binary format, not human-readable. Deals with attribute-value pairs like JSON. Includes datetime, bytearray and other data types not present in JSON. Used in web apps with rich media data types such as live video. Primary use is storage, not network communication.

  • MessagePack - Designed for data to be transparently converted from/to JSON. Compressed binary format, not human-readable. Supports static typing. Supports RPC. Better JSON compatibility than BSON. Primary use is network communication, not storage. Used in apps with distributed file systems.

  • protobuf (Protocol Buffers) - Created by Google. Binary message format that allows programmers to specify a schema for the data. Also includes a set of rules and tools to define and exchange these messages. Transparent data compression. Used in multi-platform applications due to easy interoperability between languages. Universal RPC framework. Used in performance-critical distributed applications.

Comparing serialization formats?

Here's a brief comparison:

  • Speed – Binary formats are faster than textual formats. A late entrant, protobuf reports the best times. With compressed data, speed difference is even greater. For apps that aren't data intensive or real time, JSON is preferable due to readability and being schema-less.

  • Data size – This refers to the physical space in bytes post serialization. For small data, compressed JSON data occupies more space compared to binary formats like protobuf. With larger files, the gap narrows. Generally, binary formats always occupy less space.

  • Usability – Human readable formats like JSON are naturally preferred over binary formats. For editing data, YAML is good. For complex data types, cross-platform serialization libraries allow data structure to be defined in schemas (for text formats) or IDL (for binary formats). Schema definition is easy in protobuf, with in-built tools.

  • Compatibility, extensibility – JSON is a closed format. XML is average with schema versioning. Backward compatibility (extending schemas) is best handled by protobuf.

Serialization Frameworks

PreviousSingalRNextImplement caching

Last updated 5 years ago

Protobuf-net
ZeroFormatter
Json.net
MessagePack