Byte Formatter

This framework helps serialize objects to binary format.

Requirements

• Unity 2019.4 or newer.

Dependencies

None.

Installation

Add the package to Packages/manifest.json:

{
  "dependencies": {
    "com.elestrago.unity.byte-formatter": "3.1.11"
  },
  "scopedRegistries": [
    {
      "name": "eLeSTRaGo",
      "url": "https://registry.npmjs.org",
      "scopes": [
        "com.elestrago.unity"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Replace the registry URL above with your scoped registry, or remove the scopedRegistries block when consuming a published package.

Getting Started

There are no editor menus or [CreateAssetMenu] assets — the public entry surface is the runtime ByteWriter / ByteReader pair plus the ByteFormatterTypeCache.Init() bootstrap that the source generator emits into every consumer assembly. Call Init() once at startup, then write any type tagged [ByteSerializable] to a ByteWriter and read it back through a ByteReader. The snippet below mirrors the playground MonoBehaviour at Assets/Scripts/StateSerialization.cs:11.

using ByteFormatter.Runtime;
using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.Scripting;

[ByteSerializable]
public partial class SaveState
{
    [ByteField(1)] public int Score { get; set; }
    [ByteField(2)] public string PlayerName { get; set; }

    [Preserve] public SaveState() { }
}

public class Boot : MonoBehaviour
{
    private void Start()
    {
        ByteFormatterTypeCache.Init();

        var writer = new ByteWriter();
        new SaveState { Score = 1234, PlayerName = "ada" }.ToByte(writer);
        byte[] payload = writer.ToArray();

        var loaded = new ByteReader(payload).ReadByteConvertable<SaveState>();
        Debug.Log($"{loaded.PlayerName}: {loaded.Score}");
    }
}

Use one ByteWriter / ByteReader per thread; separate instances are safe to use concurrently. ByteFormatterTypeCache.Init() is startup-only. See Threading.

Documentation

• Manual — concepts and architecture.
• API Reference — every public type and member.
• Examples — short, paste-ready snippets that call into the public API.

Unity Samples

None — this package does not ship importable Package Manager samples.

License

See LICENSE.