Architecture and method for serialization and deserialization of objects

• US 7,814,124 B1
• Filed: 07/11/2005
• Issued: 10/12/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: de Jong, Stephen Peter, Roxe, Joseph L., Kakivaya, Gopala Krishna R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Abel Jalil; Neveen
• Assistant Examiner(s): LIANG, VEI CHUNG
• Application Number:
  US11/178,847
• Time in Patent Office: 1,919 Days
• Field of Search: 707/100, 707/103.R, 709/246
• US Class Current: 707/798
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4493 Object persistence

Abstract

An architecture and method is provided that facilitates serialization of a graph of objects into streams of data in an arbitrary format, and deserialization of the streams of data back into the graph of objects. The architecture provides a number of services associated with the basic functionality of serialization and deserialization. The services can be employed to implement transparent remoting, copy items to a clipboard and save data to a file. The present invention provides facilities which support the plugging in of a new serialization encoding by separating the encoding from the reading and reinstantiation of the graph of objects which the encoding describes. Objects in a graph of objects are serialized and deserialized based on a selected rule set for that object. A rule set can be provided by a class author within a class or within a third party file referred to as a surrogate.

Claims

1. A computer implemented system comprising:

a processor that executes the following computer executable components stored on a computer readable medium;

a serialization component that facilitates serializing at least one object of a graph of objects into a serial stream of data based on a rule set; and

a formatting component that;

detects that a user-defined rule set is defined in a different object that is a surrogate for the object, wherein the rule set facilitates defining a reference object to be serialized in place of the object;

provides a proxy reference for communicating to the object via the reference object; and

employs the user-defined rule set to serialize and deserialize the object.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the rule set enables restricting serialization of at least one part of the object.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the serialization component is enabled to serialize and deserialize the serial stream of data in XML, HTML, and binary formats.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the rule set defines how an object of a class type is populated to a data structure outside of the object.

5. A computer readable storage medium having stored thereon computer executable components comprising:

a serializing component that serializes each object of a graph of objects based on a rule set associated with the object;

a selector component that, for at least one object in the graph of objects;

determines that an other object is a surrogate for the object to be serialized; and

informs the serializing component to serialize the object based on a rule set included in the surrogate; and

a formatter services component that;

receives a serialized stream of an object;

instantiates an object type;

creates a proxy for an object reference derived from a reference object; and

deserializes the object into the object type by populating the object type with data of the object.

6. The computer readable storage medium of claim 5, further comprising a serialization binder component that determines an object type to instantiate.

7. The computer readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein the object type is similar to a type of the object or a different type defined by a user.

8. The computer readable storage medium of claim 5, wherein the rule set is selected from a plurality of rule sets comprising serializing an object based on XML, HTML, and binary formats.

9. The computer readable storage medium of claim 5, further comprising an object manager that:

tracks forward references to other objects of the graph of objects; and

populates an object with data associated with the other object.

10. The computer readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the object manager retrieves a real object for each serialized object of an object reference type and places the real object in the graph of objects.

11. A computer implemented method for serializing and deserializing a graph of objects, comprising:

employing a processor to execute computer executable instructions stored on a computer readable medium to perform the following acts;

retrieving each object from the graph of objects;

determining that at least one user-defined rule set is included in an object that is a surrogate for the object to be serialized and deserialized;

selecting a serialization rule set from the at least one user-defined rule set included in the surrogate;

providing serialization information of an object retrieved from the graph of objects to a formatter, wherein the formatter provides a proxy reference for communicating to the object via a reference object so that the formatter can serialize the retrieved object in an externalized format defined by the selected at least one serialization rule set; and

during deserialization of the graph of objects;

determining whether an object includes a forward reference to an other object; and

populating the object with data associated with the other object.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the externalized format comprises XML, HTML, and binary formats.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the serialization information comprises a name value pair representing one or more fields of an object and metadata defining at least one of a type of the object or a type of data associated with the object.