Xe.BinaryMapper 1.1.1

About

Xe.BinaryMapper is a .Net library that is capable to deserialize and serialize a binary file into a managed object. BinaryMapper aims to be easy to use and to hack.

The library is available on NuGet and a Install-Package Xe.BinaryMapper will make it available in your project in few seconds.

Learn more on https://www.nuget.org/packages/Xe.BinaryMapper/ .

Example

class Sample
{
    [Data] public short Foo { get; set; }
    [Data(offset: 4, count: 3, stride: 2)] public List<byte> Bar { get; set; }
}

...

var obj = new Sample
{
   Foo = 123,
   Bar = new List<byte>(){ 22, 44 }
};
BinaryMapping.WriteObject(writer, obj);

will be serialized into 7B 00 00 00 16 00 2C 00 00 00.

How the data is de/serialized

The binary data serialized few lines ago can be break down in the following flow logic:

[Data] public short Foo { get; set; }

Write a short (or System.Int16), so 2 bytes, of foo that contains the 123 value: 7B 00 is written.

[Data(offset: 4, count: 3, stride: 2)] public List<byte> Bar { get; set; }

Move to offset 4, which is 4 bytes after the initial class definition. But we already written 2 bytes, so just move 2 bytes forward.

We now have a List<> of two System.Byte. The stride between each value is 2 bytes, so write the first element 22 (our 0x16), skip one byte of stride and do the same with the second element 44.

But the count is 3, so we will just write other two bytes of zeroed data.

Can be done more?

Absolutely! Many primitive values are supported and can be customized (like how to de/serialize TimeSpan for example). Plus, nested class definitions can be used.

Usage

Serialization

The entire serialization happens in BinaryMapping.WriteObject, which accepts a BinaryWriter to write into a stream and the object to serialize.

The serialization always starts from BinaryWriter.BaseStream.Position.

Deserialization

The entire de-serialization happens in BinaryMapping.ReadObject, which accepts a BinaryReader to read from the specified object and an existing object that will be used to store the read data.

The deserialization always starts from BinaryReader.BaseStream.Position.

The Data attribute

The DataAttribute is really important because, without it, the mapping does not happen.

The DataAttribute can be used only on a property that has public getter and setter, and has the following three optional parameters:

• offset where the data is physically located inside the file; the value is relative to the class definition. If not specified, the offset value is the same as the previous offset + its value size.
• count how many times the item should be de/serialized. This is only useful for byte[] or List<T> types.
• stride how long is the actual data to de/serialize. This is very useful to skip some data when de/serializing List<T> data.

Custom mapping

To customize how the de/serialization works for a specific type, a Mapping object must be passed to BinaryMapping.SetMapping.

A Mapping object is defined by two actions: Writer and Reader. An example on how to customize a mapping can be found here:

BinaryMapping.SetMapping<bool>(new BinaryMapping.Mapping
{
    Writer = x => x.Writer.Write((byte)((bool)x.Item ? 1 : 0)),
    Reader = x => x.Reader.ReadByte() != 0
});

Types supported

• byte / System.Byte 1 byte long.
• sbyte / System.SByte 1 byte long.
• short / System.Int16 2 bytes long.
• ushort / System.UInt16 2 bytes long.
• int / System.Int32 4 bytes long.
• uint / System.UInt32 4 bytes long.
• long / System.Int64 8 bytes long.
• ulong / System.UInt64 8 bytes long.
• float / System.Single 4 bytes long.
• double / System.Double 8 bytes long.
• Enum variable length.
• TimeSpan 8 bytes long.
• DateTime 8 bytes long. Ignores the Kind property.
• Enum customizable size based on inherted type.
• string fixed size based from count parameter.
• byte[] fixed array of bytes based from count parameter.
• List<> fixed list based from count parameter of any object or one of the types specified above.

Future plans

• Improve performance caching types
• Array and IEnumerable support

Projects that uses BinaryMapper

Kingdom Hearts 3 Save Editor

https://github.com/Xeeynamo/KH3SaveEditor

Written by the author of BinaryMapper. This is a perfect example on a real scenario of how BinaryMapper can be used.