C# object to string and back

Question

My problem:
I have a dynamic codecompiler which can compile a snippet of code. The rest of the code. (imports, namespace, class, main function) is already there. The snipp

Answer 1

You will have to make a conversion method to display it and serialize it to be able to convert it back and forth.

For instance:

    public static string ConvertToDisplayString(object o)
    {
        if (o == null)
            return "null";
        var type = o.GetType();
        if (type == typeof(YourType))
        {
            return ((YourType)o).Property;
        }
        else
        {
            return o.ToString();
        }
    }

Answer 2

It's an old question but I think that I have a solution that can work better for most of the times (it creates a shorter string and doesn't require the Serializable attribute).

The idea is to serialize the object to JSON and then convert it to base64, see the extension function:

public static string ToBase64(this object obj)
{
    string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(obj);

    byte[] bytes = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(json);

    return Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);
}

In order to create the object, we need to convert the base64 to bytes, convert to string and deserialize the JSON to T

public static T FromBase64<T>(this string base64Text)
{
    byte[] bytes = Convert.FromBase64String(base64Text);

    string json = Encoding.Default.GetString(bytes);

    return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(json);
}

Answer 3

Serialize the object using the BinaryFormatter, and then return the bytes as a string (Base64 encoded). Doing it backwards gives you your object back.

public string ObjectToString(object obj)
{
   using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
   {
     new BinaryFormatter().Serialize(ms, obj);         
     return Convert.ToBase64String(ms.ToArray());
   }
}

public object StringToObject(string base64String)
{    
   byte[] bytes = Convert.FromBase64String(base64String);
   using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(bytes, 0, bytes.Length))
   {
      ms.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
      ms.Position = 0;
      return new BinaryFormatter().Deserialize(ms);
   }
}