What is the best way to deserialize generics written with a different version of a signed assembly?
- by Rick Minerich
In other cases it has been suggested that you simply add a SerializationBinder which removes the version from the assembly type. However, when using generic collections of a type found in a signed assembly, that type is strictly versioned based on its assembly.
Here is what I've found works.
internal class WeaklyNamedAssemblyBinder : SerializationBinder
{
public override Type BindToType(string assemblyName, string typeName)
{
ResolveEventHandler handler = new ResolveEventHandler(CurrentDomain_AssemblyResolve);
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolve += handler;
Type returnedType;
try
{
AssemblyName asmName = new AssemblyName(assemblyName);
var assembly = Assembly.Load(asmName);
returnedType = assembly.GetType(typeName);
}
catch
{
returnedType = null;
}
finally
{
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolve -= handler;
}
return returnedType;
}
Assembly CurrentDomain_AssemblyResolve(object sender, ResolveEventArgs args)
{
string truncatedAssemblyName = args.Name.Split(',')[0];
Assembly assembly = Assembly.Load(truncatedAssemblyName);
return assembly;
}
}
However, causing the binding process to change globally seems rather dangerous to me. Strange things could happen if serialization was happening in multiple threads. Perhaps a better solution is to do some regex manipulation of the typeName? What do you think?
