Limitations

This page describes the limitations of Nino.

Current Limitations

• Need to be used with Source Generator
• WEAK_VERSION_TOLERANCE defined project cannot deserialize data serialized by a project without WEAK_VERSION_TOLERANCE defined, and vice versa
• When attempting to serialize types that are not supported (such as Queue), a compilation error will occur
• ValueTuple behaves differently in .NET Core and Unity/Mono

  INFO

  This is not Nino's fault. If you look at the implementation for ValueTuple in Mono, this link, they did not specify the struct layout of all valuetuples, so its fields will be serialized/deserialized sequentially by Nino. Note that Unity is currently using Mono in its editor, or player mode as well (while IL2CPP is not selected). I am not sure what IL2CPP does with this but I believe it is consitent with Mono.

  However, in .NET Core's implementation, this link here, they choose to use LayoutKind.Auto to layout valuetuples, that can lead to a different result compared to the Mono implementation. So ValueTuple is not compatible between .NET Core and Unity/Mono.

Resolved Limitations

• Cannot rename type name/namespace after serialization

  INFO

  This feature was implemented in v3.2.2, and now you can rename the type name/namespace after serialization and still be able to deserialize the old data serialized by the old type name/namespace

• Have no version tolerance for collections

  INFO

  This feature was implemented in v3.2.0, and now you can modify the data structure of a type and still be able to deserialize the old data serialized by the old data structure, even it is a colection (list, dictionary, etc.) with polymorphic elements

• Cannot serialize/deserialize non-public fields/properties

  INFO

  This feature was implemented in v3.0.6, but there are some things to note:

  • If you are using a version below NET8.0, you need to add the partial modifier to the type that contains private members, such as partial class MyClass
  • If you are using a version below NET8.0, you cannot define private members in the serializable nested type
  • If you are using version NET8.0 and above, there are no restrictions
• For polymorphic unmanaged struct, serializing the struct with and without casting to its interface produces different results, and requires different deserialization methods to obtain the correct result

  INFO

  This problem was fixed since v3.0.3 - all polymorphic unmanaged structs will be serialized and deserialized in a uniformed way no matter whether it is casted to its interface or not

• If your project aims to run on big-endian platforms, you need to add the define symbol BIG_ENDIAN to Nino.Core project and to compile it on your own then use the compiled dll. Otherwise, Nino assumes the platform is little-endian (default by C#) and may lead to incorrect deserialization on big-endian platforms.

  INFO

  In theory, all platforms running on .NET (including Unity) are little-endian, so you don't need to worry about this issue.

  If you encounter big-endian issues, then add the BIG_ENDIAN define symbol will solve the problem.