The input stream is not a valid binary format

Question

I'd like to Deserialize my "DataStore" to get a list of Typs. First i want to make theese in XMl with the XMLSerializer but it seems that he dont like Interfaces, Abstract Class and Typs ... but there is no Workaround so i need to store my Main content in an XML class:

public class InstalledObjects
{
    private InstalledObjects()
    {

    }

    static InstalledObjects _instance = new InstalledObjects();

    ObservableCollection<AbstrICTSUseObject> _installedObects = new ObservableCollection<AbstrICTSUseObject>();        

    public static InstalledObjects Instance
    {
        get { return _instance; }
        set { _instance = value; }
    }

    public ObservableCollection<AbstrICTSUseObject> InstalledObects
    {
        get { return _installedObects; }
        set { _installedObects = value; }
    }

    public void Saves()
    {
        List<Type> types = new List<Type>();

        foreach (var item in InstalledObects)
        {
            types.Add( item.GetType() );
        }

        TypeStore ts = new TypeStore();
        ts.Typen = types;
        ts.SaveAsBinary("TypeStore.xml");
        this.SaveAsXML("LocalDataStore.xml", types.ToArray());
    }

    public void Load()
    {
        if (File.Exists("LocalDataStore.xml"))
        {
            TypeStore ts = new TypeStore();
            ts.LoadFromBinary("LocalDataStore.xml");
            this.LoadFromXML("LocalDataStore.xml",ts.Typen.ToArray()); 
        }
    }
}

And store my Typs in an Simple class:

[Serializable]
public class TypeStore
{
    List<Type> _typen = new List<Type>();

    public List<Type> Typen
    {
        get { return _typen; }
        set { _typen = value; }
    }
}

Ok good think this works as long as i just Save all, and i Think this will also working if there would not the litte problem that the "LoadFromBinary" throw some expetions -.-

    public static void SaveAsBinary(this Object A, string FileName)
    {
        FileStream fs = new FileStream(FileName, FileMode.Create);
        BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
        formatter.Serialize(fs, A);
    }

    public static void LoadFromBinary(this Object A, string FileName) 
    {
        if (File.Exists(FileName))
        {
            Stream fs = new FileStream(FileName, FileMode.Open);
            BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
            A = formatter.Deserialize(fs) ;
        }
    }

The Expeption:

     The input stream is not a valid binary format. The starting contents (in bytes) are: 3C-3F-78-6D-6C-20-76-65-72-73-69-6F-6E-3D-22-31-2E ...

Thx for help Venson :-)

Answer 1

Is this as simple as the fact that you're reading from the wrong file?

Note:

ts.SaveAsBinary("TypeStore.xml");
this.SaveAsXML("LocalDataStore.xml", types.ToArray());

Then:

ts.LoadFromBinary("LocalDataStore.xml");
this.LoadFromXML("LocalDataStore.xml", ts.Typen.ToArray());

Should be:

ts.LoadFromBinary("TypeStore.xml");
this.LoadFromXML("LocalDataStore.xml", ts.Typen.ToArray());

however, note that calling it .xml is misleading. Also: watch out for versioning - BinaryFormatter is a real pig for that. Personally, I'd just be manually serializing each type's AssemblyQualifiedName - which can be done in normal xml.