Question Binaryformatter isn't working for save/load function

I'm new to using unity and I've been trying to learn to use binaryformatter to save and load stats, but even though it says the save and load worked, the stats don't go to how they were supposed to be like
Here's the code

public class Save: MonoBehaviour
{
// Start is called before the first frame update
private Player _player;
private PlayerD dat;
public void Awake()
{
_player = GameObject.FindObjectOfType<Player>();
}
public void Saving()
{
string path = Application.persistentDataPath + "/save.game";
FileStream stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.OpenOrCreate);
try
{
BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
bf.Serialize(stream, _player.a);
}
catch (SerializationException)
{
Debug.Log("Save Error");
}
finally
{
Debug.Log("Reading");

stream.Close();
}
}
public void Load()
{string path = Application.persistentDataPath + "/save.game";
FileStream stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open);
try
{
BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
PlayerD data = bf.Deserialize(stream) as PlayerD;
}
catch (SerializationException)
{
Debug.LogError("Load error");
}
finally
{
Debug.Log("loading");
stream.Close();
}
}
}

 

Code (CSharp):

1. public class Save: MonoBehaviour
2. {
3. // Start is called before the first frame update
4. private Player _player;
5. private PlayerD dat;
6. public void Awake()
7. {
8. _player = GameObject.FindObjectOfType<Player>();
9. }
10. public void Saving()
11. {
12. string path = Application.persistentDataPath + "/save.game";
13. FileStream stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.OpenOrCreate);
14. try
15. {
16. BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
17. bf.Serialize(stream, _player.a);
18. }
19. catch (SerializationException)
20. {
21. Debug.Log("Save Error");
22. }
23. finally
24. {
25. Debug.Log("Reading");
26.  
27. stream.Close();
28. }
29. }
30. public void Load()
31. {string path = Application.persistentDataPath + "/save.game";
32. FileStream stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open);
33. try
34. {
35. BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
36. PlayerD data = bf.Deserialize(stream) as PlayerD;
37. }
38. catch (SerializationException)
39. {
40. Debug.LogError("Load error");
41. }
42. finally
43. {
44. Debug.Log("loading");
45. stream.Close();
46. }
47. }
48. }

 

You are serializing _player.a
Is the field/property a type of PlayerD?

 

yes, _player.a is a type of PlayerD (and PlayerD is serializable)

 

Just so you know...

Don't use the binary formatter/serializer: it is insecure, it cannot be made secure, and it makes debugging very difficult, plus it actually will NOT prevent people from modifying your save data on their computers.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/serialization/binaryformatter-security-guide

I would recommend JSON instead, perhaps with the Newtonsoft JSON package available from the asset store or from github free.

 

Good points from @Kurt-Dekker, whenever I save stuff like player data (health, lives, money, etc) I take extra steps to make it easily editable in JSON.

On my current project I use binary to reduce the save size, it won't help secure your save(it will make it harder to modify to your liking though), but it has other benefits.

edit: one good example for JSON is a config file, video setting and such.

 

Aside from the obvious advice about JSON instead of BinaryFormatter, the problem with the code is that you never load data back into "_player.a", instead you load it into a local variable that dies within the scope of the Load method. Also, use cast instead of "as". With "as" you will not be able to catch an error with invalid data.

Code (CSharp):

1. _player.a = (PlayerD)bf.Deserialize(stream);

 

ok, so to sum it all up, I should try to use JSON for more secure and flexible save files instead of BF and my old code wasn't actually loading the file back into the game.

 

I just made the jump from BinarySerializer to Newtonsoft JSON and I'm really glad I finally listened to @Kurt-Dekker 's advice.

It was not a whole lot of work for me since the only change was the actual serialization process, my data transfer objects remain the same and Newtonsoft's JSON implementation will honor the ISerializable interface which is what I use mostly.

I'm not a fan of the inflated file size increase but it makes debugging a thousand times easier and allowed me to quickly notice where I was serializing data wrong.

Honestly switch to JSON it's super worth it!

 

ok so I tried switching to JSon but it now seems like the values aren't being actually saved?
(not trying to save position currently, since that seems like an even bigger issue)

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
using System.IO;
public class Stats : MonoBehaviour
{
PlayerD S = new PlayerD();
private void Awake()
{


}
public void save()
{
int W = S.wp;
float speed = S.spe;
PlayStats stat = new PlayStats
{
wp = W,
spe=speed,
};
string json = JsonUtility.ToJson(stat);
File.WriteAllText(Application.dataPath + "/savv.txt", json);
}
public void load()
{
if (File.Exists(Application.dataPath + "/savv.txt"))
{
Debug.Log(File.ReadAllText(Application.dataPath + "/savv.txt"));
string saveFile = File.ReadAllText(Application.dataPath + "/savv.txt");
PlayStats stat=JsonUtility.FromJson<PlayStats>(saveFile);
S.wp = stat.wp;
S.spe = stat.spe;
Debug.Log(S.wp + " " + S.spe);
Debug.Log(stat.wp + " " + stat.spe);
}
else
{
Debug.Log("No file");
}
}
public class PlayStats
{
public int wp;
public float spe;
public Vector3 pos;
}
}

and here's PlayerD

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
[System.Serializable]
public class PlayerD
{
// Start is called before the first frame update
public int wp;
public float spe;
public Vector3 pos;
}

 

also here's my player, even though it's not being called

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.SceneManagement;
public class Player: MonoBehaviour
{
public float[] playPos;
public PlayerD a;
public Vector3 position;
CharacterController Cont;
// Start is called before the first frame update
void Awake() => Cont = GetComponent<CharacterController>();
public bool IsGrounded;
private void Start()
{
a.spe = 5f;
a.wp = 1;
}
// Update is called once per frame
void FixedUpdate()
{
float h = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");
float v = Input.GetAxis("Vertical");
Vector3 dir = new Vector3(h,0, v);
Vector3 mov = transform.TransformDirection(dir) * a.spe;
IsGrounded = Cont.SimpleMove(mov);

}
void Update()
{
if (Input.GetKey(KeyCode.RightArrow))
{
a.wp += 1;
}
if (a.wp % 5 == 0)
{
a.spe += 1;
}
}

 

If you post a code snippet, ALWAYS USE CODE TAGS:

How to use code tags: https://forum.unity.com/threads/using-code-tags-properly.143875/

To debug data problems and to help gain more insight into your problem, I recommend liberally sprinkling Debug.Log() statements through your code to display information in realtime.

Doing this should help you answer these types of questions:

- is this code even running? which parts are running? how often does it run?
- what are the values of the variables involved? Are they initialized?

Knowing this information will help you reason about the behavior you are seeing.

 

ok, so the code overall seems to be running, but the stats on the json file are all shown at 0. The variables' initial values are 1 for WP and 5 for spe, but even those appear as 0 on the json