Serialize to C# Script

Question

Roslyn scripting allows to evaluate a C# script containing just an object creation expression, effectively allowing to deserialize objects from scripts:

var script = "new Point { X = 1, Y = 2 }";
var point = await CSharpScript.EvaluateAsync<T>(script);

Is there a library that allows to do the reverse serialization?

script = ???.Serialize(point);

That's not serialization, it's scripting, Roslyn interprets the string as code. — Gusman, Oct 27 '16 at 22:07
If you want just serialization, use serialization, evaluating code as script is by far slower than just serializing. — Gusman, Oct 27 '16 at 22:11
I want to have the strong typing and expressiveness of C#, performance is not a big concern — Andriy Svyryd, Oct 27 '16 at 22:12
Using JSON.net you can explicitly tell the serializer/deserializer to include full class names so it will be strongly typed. Anyway, Roslyn can't do any of this, the most approximate you can do is to use ILSpy: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29567489/can-roslyn-generate-source-code-from-an-object-instance But that will not give you the result you expect, it will return the declarative C# code, not the code from a class with it's properties already set. — Gusman, Oct 27 '16 at 22:15
the "???" part is what would be ugly, it would mean you could call `.Serialize(point);` from litereally anywhere. Also, how to tell where this serialization should start? I don't think thats possible... — nozzleman, Oct 28 '16 at 05:33
@nozzleman Why it would be ugly? Converting an instance/a struct into a string that can be deserialized later is the common job that XML/JSON serializers do every day and noone will call them ugly. So it is possible but I would not recommend it :o) — Sir Rufo, Oct 28 '16 at 07:14
@SirRufo when it comes to objects, of course, you are right, the SCriptEvaluation is more powerfull than that. What i was referring to was to "serialize" parts of of a method for example. How to tell from where to where (which statements) the serialization should happen? — nozzleman, Oct 28 '16 at 07:36
@nozzleman He never mentioned to serialize a method call ;o) — Sir Rufo, Oct 28 '16 at 09:06
@SirRufo thats right, but `new Point { X = 1, Y = 2 }` is more of a statement but an `object` ;) — nozzleman, Oct 28 '16 at 11:39

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 31 '16 at 13:15

1

Since there doesn't appear to be an existing library that can accomplish this I wrote one that should handle the simple cases: https://github.com/AndriySvyryd/CSharpScriptSerializer

var input = new Point {X = 1, Y = 1};
var script = CSScriptSerializer.Serialize(input);
var output = CSScriptSerializer.Deserialize<Point>(script);

edited Oct 31 '16 at 13:15

m0sa

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answered Oct 29 '16 at 20:49

Andriy Svyryd

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Serialize to C# Script

1 Answers1