FIX: BinaryFormatter and .NET Remoting cannot deserialize deeply nested structs (320079)

MORE INFORMATION

The following nested structs, defined in C#, demonstrate the problem. The structs are nested three level deep.

[Serializable]
public struct TopLevel
{
	public SecondLevel second ;
}
[Serializable]
public struct SecondLevel
{
	public ThirdLevel third ;
}
[Serializable]
public struct ThirdLevel
{
	public int i;
}
				

The following C# sample code fragment, which uses BinaryFormatter, reproduces the problem by serializing and deserializing an instance of the nested structs:

// Initialize the nested structs.
TopLevel tl = new TopLevel(); 	
tl.second  = new SecondLevel ();
tl.second.third = new ThirdLevel ();
tl.second.third.i = 5;
				

Add these lines on top of the C# file:

using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;
using System.IO;
				

Serialize the structs into a stream, and then try to deserialize the structs:

BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
formatter.Serialize(stream, tl);
stream.Position = 0;
Object obj = formatter.Deserialize(stream); 
				

You can use BinaryFormatter with .NET Remoting. By default, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) channel uses BinaryFormatter. If you pass the same structs to a remote object by using .NET Remoting with binary serialization, then you will experience the same problem.