Serializing data types for use over a network in F#

Question

I want to send a a Uint16 over the network. I've had a look at the different .NET serializers available. According to this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1884755/f-serialize-discriminated-union-why-so-many-bytes using a BinaryFormatter will generate overhead bytes that represent meta-data for that type. A result of this would be that UInt16, once passed through that formatter, may not be represented as 16 bits. I need a way to convert that UInt16 such that I get 16 bits from it that I can send to the program at the other end of the socket.

Answer 1

I think you can use System.BitConverter class:

static member GetBytes : 
        value:uint16 -> byte[] 

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8wwsdz3k.aspx

Answer 2

I just found the BitConverter class and it looks like it does what I want:

byte_array = BitConverter.GetBytes header.id

where header.id is UInt16