Snork.SerializableMail

This is a library for C#. In normal conditions, the following objects aren't serializable:

System.Net.Mail.Message
System.Net.Mail.MailAddress
System.Net.Mail.Attachment
System.Net.Mail.AddressCollection
System.Net.Mime.ContentDisposition
System.Net.Mime.ContentType

This means that if you're interested in serializing the contents of a mail message to binary, XML, or JSON, you're normally going to be out of luck.

Snork.SerializableMail does implicit conversions from the built-in .NET types to instances of substitute classes that will serialize just fine. This includes addresses, text encoding settings, and even the attachments.

These substitute classes also do implicit conversions back to the objects in the System.Net.Mail namespace, with all properties, so it's just as easy to deserialize any serialized messages and send them using SmtpClient.Send.

Sample Code (needs Newtonsoft.JSON package)

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Net.Mail;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
using Snork.SerializableMail;

namespace SampleApplication
{
    internal class Program
    {
        private static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //build a message
            var mailMessage = new MailMessage("fromme@somewhere.com", "toyou@somewhere.com");
            mailMessage.Subject = "This is the subject";
            mailMessage.Body = "This is the body";
            mailMessage.IsBodyHtml = true;
            mailMessage.Headers["X-Something-Here"] = "something we don't need";

            //create a memory stream for the attachment
            var memoryStream = new MemoryStream();
            using (var streamWriter = new StreamWriter(memoryStream, Encoding.Unicode, 1000, true))
            {
                streamWriter.Write("This is the attachment contents");
            }
            //move pointer back to zero
            memoryStream.Position = 0;
            var attachment = new Attachment(memoryStream, "somefile.txt", "text/plain");
            attachment.ContentDisposition.Parameters["abc"] = "def";
            mailMessage.Attachments.Add(attachment);

            Console.WriteLine("JSON Version:");
            Console.WriteLine(SerializeToJson(mailMessage));
            Console.WriteLine();
            Console.WriteLine("XML Version:");
            Console.WriteLine(SerializeToXml(mailMessage));

            //do an implicit conversion here
            SerializableMailMessage sendMe = mailMessage;
            using(var client = new SmtpClient()){
                //this will convert sendMe *back* to System.Net.MailMessage.
                client.Send(sendMe);
            }
            Console.ReadLine();

        }

        private static string SerializeToXml(MailMessage mailMessage)
        {
            //perform implicit conversion between types here
            SerializableMessage newMessage = mailMessage;
            var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(SerializableMessage));
            using (var stringWriter = new StringWriter())
            {
                xmlSerializer.Serialize(stringWriter, newMessage);
                return stringWriter.ToString();
            }
        }

        private static string SerializeToJson(MailMessage mailMessage)
        {
            //perform implicit conversion between types here
            SerializableMessage newMessage = mailMessage;
            return JsonConvert.SerializeObject(newMessage, Formatting.Indented);
        }
    }
}

JSON output

{
  "Headers": {
    "X-Something-Here": "something we don't need"
  },
  "Body": "This is the body",
  "Subject": "This is the subject",
  "From": {
    "DisplayNameCodePage": 65001,
    "Address": "fromme@somewhere.com",
    "DisplayName": ""
  },
  "To": [
    {
      "DisplayNameCodePage": 65001,
      "Address": "toyou@somewhere.com",
      "DisplayName": ""
    }
  ],
  "ReplyToList": [],
  "CC": [],
  "Bcc": [],
  "BodyTransferEncoding": -1,
  "IsBodyHtml": true,
  "HeadersCodePage": null,
  "BodyCodePage": 20127,
  "Sender": null,
  "DeliveryNotificationOptions": 0,
  "Attachments": [
    {
      "Name": "somefile.txt",
      "NameEncodingCodePage": null,
      "ContentDisposition": {
        "Parameters": {
          "abc": "def"
        },
        "FileName": null,
        "DispositionType": "attachment",
        "Inline": false,
        "Boundary": null,
        "MediaDisposition": null,
        "CreationDate": "0001-01-01T00:00:00",
        "ModificationDate": "0001-01-01T00:00:00",
        "Size": -1,
        "ReadDate": "0001-01-01T00:00:00"
      },
      "ContentId": "0cccface-1b83-45c7-9802-e77c471c1587",
      "ContentType": {
        "Name": "somefile.txt",
        "CharSet": null,
        "Boundary": null,
        "MediaType": "text/plain"
      },
      "ContentBytes": "//5UAGgAaQBzACAAaQBzACAAdABoAGUAIABhAHQAdABhAGMAaABtAGUAbgB0ACAAYwBvAG4AdABlAG4AdABzAA==",
      "TransferEncoding": 1
    }
  ],
  "Priority": 0,
  "SubjectCodePage": null
}

xavierjefferson/Snork.SerializableMail

Snork.SerializableMail

Sample Code (needs Newtonsoft.JSON package)

JSON output