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Note

An attribute only applies to the “very next” item. For example, the only nonserialized field of the

Motorcycle

class is 

weightOfCurrentPassengers

. The remaining fields are serializable given that the

entire class has been annotated with 

[Serializable]

.

At this point, don’t concern yourself with the actual process of object serialization (Chapter 21

examines the details). Just notice that when you wish to apply an attribute, the name of the attrib-

ute is sandwiched between square brackets.

Once this class has been compiled, you can view the extra metadata using ildasm.exe. Notice

that these attributes are recorded using the serializable and notserialized tokens (see Figure 16-6).

Figure 16-6.

Attributes shown in ildasm.exe

As you might guess, a single item can be attributed with multiple attributes. Assume you have a

legacy C# class type (HorseAndBuggy) that was marked as serializable, but is now considered obsolete

for current development. Rather than deleting the class definition from your code base (and risk

breaking existing software), you can mark the class with the [Obsolete] attribute. To apply multiple

attributes to a single item, simply use a comma-delimited list:

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