[RESOLVED] (2005) Serialization, interfaces, and unavailable classes

I have a fairly complex class structure and I want to serialize some of it to a file. Some of the classes to be serialized are loaded at runtime from external plugins (all of them implement my IDocumentContent interface). What I want to know is: if I serialize a IDocumentContent plugin that has members that are not from the IDocumentContent interface (i.e. plugin specific settings, etc.) are those serialized as well?

The second question is this: Can the data is deserialized onto a machine with IDocumentContent interface, but not the plugin that created it (with its own data)?

Last question, if so, if the data is again re-serialized, will the plugin specific data remain so that it can be deserialized onto the original machine with the plugin?

Unfortunatly, I'm not at a stage where I can test this. I need to design around the answers to this. Should the IDocumentContent inferface include a PluginSpecificData property of type ISerializable?

You know what? You are at the stage where you can test this. You simply create a couple of new projects, an interface with a one member and a class that implements that interface with an additional member. I know what I think the answers to your questions are but I don't know for a fact, so that's how I would find out for myself. It would take about 30 minutes.

OK... after numerous tests, serializing something derived from interface IDocumentContent that has extra members ALWAYS causes those extra members to be serialized. (It was what I needed...)

Second question is No. The plugin must exist for the data to be deserialized at all.

Third question is moot.