Does a variable in occupy the same space in memory as when serialized?

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Does a variable in occupy the same space in memory as when serialized?

if the class was had a SerializableAttribute and its object was serialized with BinaryFormatter, the serialized size is equal to the size it occupied in memory?

Edit: Additional question: is there a better way to find how much space an object occupies in the memory? is this method approximate enough?

+1 A:

Typically, serialized objects occupy more space, because explicit metadata has to be stored as well. However, in the memory space of the running process there is metadata also, so how do you account for the metadata part to make a correct comparison?

Lucero 2010-01-21 12:48:37

+2 A:

No. The members of a class/structure is stored in memory with padding to align them on an even word boundary when needed (according to respective data type). The serialised data has no such padding.

Guffa 2010-01-21 12:48:58

You're right about padding, and your answer "No" is right, but the explanation is not complete at the very least, just because the name of the class, including the assembly containing the class are also stored, not to mention other stuff besides object data itself.

Igor Korkhov 2010-01-21 14:44:41

@Igor: Yes, there is other information stored, but it might be possible to separate the metadata from the data. I wanted to point out that even if the metadata could be separated, it's still not a possible method to calculate the memory usage as the fundamental storage method differs.

Guffa 2010-01-21 15:10:19

@Guffa: "[...] but it might be possible to separate the metadata from the data [...]" That will require to create your own BinaryFormatter :)

Igor Korkhov 2010-01-21 15:18:29

Additional question: is there a better way to find how much space an object occupies in the memory? is this method approximate enough?

Jader Dias 2010-01-21 15:57:39

@Jader: A popular method is to use marshalling to create an unmanaged copy of the object. That's not exact either, but it's a bit closer.

Guffa 2010-01-21 17:58:53

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Does a variable in occupy the same space in memory as when serialized?

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