[Mono-dev] ObservableCollection and BindingList Serialization

[Andres G. Aragoneses]

On 12/03/13 11:08, David Schmitt wrote:
> On 12.03.2013 10:47, Robert Jordan wrote:
>>>   In addition, Windows serializes a variable name _busyCount whereas
>>> Mono
>>> defines _count.
>>>
>>>   Also, I note that BindingList serialization on Mono has different and
>>> missing variable names compared to the .NET equivalent. For example,
>>> allow_new is allowNew in .NET. In addition, do those serialized
>>> variables
>>> need to be public or should they be declared as private?
>>
>> They must have the same visibility as in MS.NET.
>>
>> Usually, when a class does not implement ISerializable, Mono's
>> implementation must be changed to match MS down to member naming.
>> It's a tedious work given that we don't look at MS' source code...
>
> Shouldn't it be possible to extract "clean room" serialization
> descriptors from the MS implementation without having to look at the
> source?

I think you could automate that via mono-api-info with the --abi flag.


> Extracting that into some kind of stable text format then would enable
> automated comparisons, no?

Yes, however, this wouldn't guarantee binary serialization compatibility 
as far as I understand. It would be just the first step, right?