How to pass object messages in Azure Queue Storage

Question

I'm trying to find a way to pass objects to the Azure Queue. Is there anyway to pass custom objects to the Queue?

Answer 1

I already have a base class, so I used this:

using System;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Queue;
using Newtonsoft.Json;

namespace Example.Queue
{
    public static class CloudQueueMessageExtensions
    {
        public static CloudQueueMessage Serialize(Object o)
        {
            var stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
            stringBuilder.Append(o.GetType().FullName);
            stringBuilder.Append(':');
            stringBuilder.Append(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(o));
            return new CloudQueueMessage(stringBuilder.ToString());
        }

        public static T Deserialize<T>(this CloudQueueMessage m)
        {
            int indexOf = m.AsString.IndexOf(':');

            if (indexOf <= 0)
                throw new Exception(string.Format("Cannot deserialize into object of type {0}", 
                    typeof (T).FullName));

            string typeName = m.AsString.Substring(0, indexOf);
            string json = m.AsString.Substring(indexOf + 1);

            if (typeName != typeof (T).FullName)
            {
                throw new Exception(string.Format("Cannot deserialize object of type {0} into one of type {1}", 
                    typeName,
                    typeof (T).FullName));
            }

            return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(json);
        }
    }
}

This approach is compact. If you use this code, you may still need a reference to the original CloudQueueMessage in order to Delete it from the queue after reading.