Hello. I'm prototyping an app and have the dilemma on which format to use for returning serialized entities and collections from my WebMethods:

1. MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream(); BinaryFormatter fmt = new BinaryFormatter(); fmt.Serialize(stream, obj); string s = System.Convert.ToBase64String(stream.GetBuffer());

2. string s = String.Empty; if (obj is IEntity2) ((IEntity2)obj).WriteXml(out s); else if (obj is IEntityCollection2) ((IEntityCollection2)obj).WriteXml(out s);

Surprisingly, the binary output seems to be 10-15% larger, but I'm not sure what is faster. What is the forum's experience with a production system?

Otis, what is your suggestion?

Return an XmlNode, you fill with WriteXml. You can at the client build back the object by passing the XmlNode to the ReadXml() method.