Which types are actually serializable? Is the documentation incorrect or am I?

[BadAssGames]

So I’m writing my own serializing method for a quick little app I’m making and have been running into some issues.

I have a data structure called SaveableData which stores a whole bunch of information that is important to resuming the state when the game is loaded. The SaveableData class is what gets serialized to the hard drive by my Binary Formatter.

public class SaveLoad : MonoBehaviour 
{
    public string saveName = "Tech_Tree_01";
    public string savePath = "/";

    public void SaveData(SaveableData dataToSave)
    {
        string path = Application.persistentDataPath + savePath + saveName + ".dat";
        FileStream userFile;

        if(!File.Exists(path))
        {//If the file isn't here, create it
            userFile = File.Create(path);
            userFile.Close();
        }

        //Then push all the data we need to save into this file
        BinaryFormatter binaryFormatter = new BinaryFormatter();
        userFile = File.Open(path, FileMode.Open);
        binaryFormatter.Serialize(userFile, dataToSave);//This function serializes all our data to file
        userFile.Close();
    }


    public void LoadData(string path)
    {
        SaveableData loadedData = new SaveableData();//This is the data that we're gonna load
        
        if(File.Exists(path))
        {
            BinaryFormatter binaryFormatter = new BinaryFormatter();
            FileStream userFile = File.Open(path, FileMode.Open);
            loadedData = (SaveableData)binaryFormatter.Deserialize(userFile);
            userFile.Close();
        }
        loadedData.LoadSaveableData();//After we have deserialized everything, load the data
    }

SaveableData contains data of the following types: ints, floats, strings, rects, colors, and vector2s. When attempting to serialize this data, I get the following errors:

SerializationException: Type UnityEngine.Rect is not marked as Serializable.

SerializationException: Type UnityEngine.Vector2 is not marked as Serializable.

SerializationException: Type UnityEngine.Color is not marked as Serializable.

Unity - Scripting API: SerializeField

According to the documentation, the following is serializable:

• All classes inheriting from UnityEngine.Object, for example
  GameObject, Component, MonoBehaviour,
  Texture2D, AnimationClip… - All basic
  data types like int, string, float,
  bool. - Some built-in types like
  Vector2, Vector3, Vector4, Quaternion, Matrix4x4, Color,
  Rect, LayerMask… - Arrays of a serializable type
• List of a serializable type (new in Unity2.6)
• Enums

NOTE: I have properly placed the [System.Serializable] Attribute at the top of the classes. My current version is 4.5 Pro.

I’ve looked all over and I can’t find anyone else having these issues. Where am I going wrong? Is the documentation incorrect or am I making a mistake?

[BadAssGames]

Well, Devluz pretty much answered this.

For anyone else having similar issues, the unfortunate solution I chose was to write a rather simple, but annoying function. This It looks something like this: (Pseudocode)

System.Collection.Generic.List<float> floatList;

public void SerializeData()
{
    foreach(DataType data in myData)
    {
        //loop through and grab all the data as a float
        //then add that float to the float list
    }
}

public void DeserializeData()
{
    foreach(float number in floatList)
    {
        //loop through and grab the floats and convert them 
        //back to their original data types *sigh*
    }
}

[mikest]

If using the C# binary formatter, I think something like this is easier to implement and use than the float array. I have also used a similar technique to serialize Vector3’s in Unity.

[System.Serializable]
public class SerializableColor {
	public float R;
	public float G;
	public float B;
	public float A;
	public SerializableColor (Color color) {
		R = color.r;
		G = color.g;
		B = color.b;
		A = color.a;
	}
	public Color GetColor () {
		return new Color(R, G, B, A);
	}
}

[Voxel-Busters]

Serialization of Unity objects are not directly possible using Binary Formatter. Check this post for more info.