Advantages over IKVM converted java BeanIO

• Also usable in mobile (Windows Phone, Android, iOS) and Windows Store applications
• No need to handle with the java types (like ArrayList).
• No need to provide all the IKVM assemblies.
• Contains support for customer provided scheme handlers to be able to get the imported mappings from every place you need to load it from (Internet, isolated storage, etc.)

Compatibility

This port is in most parts compatbile with 2.1.0 of BeanIO, except the JSON functionality, as Newtonsoft.Json already supports very flexible (de-)serialization.

Differences

New features

• Supports .NET Standard 1.1 (.NET Core 1.0, .NET Framework 4.5+, Windows 8+, Windows Phone 8.1+, Mono 4.4+, Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.MonoTouch, and Xamarin.Android).
• Contains support for generics.
• Contains support for customer provided scheme handlers (to be able to provide direct file access).
• New mapping file to enable field validation while marshalling (2015-06)
• Added mapping files to NuGet package
• Support for ICollection<> interfaces
• New At() function for StreamBuilder
• Added the ability to use templates from the RecordBuilder and SegmentBuilder
• New parseDefault configuration to allow default values that don't match the unterlying fields type (e.g. 00000000 as LocalDate with format yyyyMMdd)

Changed

• The namespace is now BeanIO instead of org.beanio.
• Type names must contain the assembly name, because there is no ClassLoader in .NET.
• The date type handler uses NodaTime.LocalDate.
• The time type handler uses NodaTime.LocalTime.
• When you want to use a date with time zone, you have to use the datetimeoffset type handler.
• There's a resource: scheme instead of a classpath: scheme that references an assembly ressource. The assembly name must be specified.
• Use of ressource files (*.resx) for error message ressources instead of *.properties files.
• There's no FieldsAttribute which may contain FieldAttributes. Just use multiple UnboundFieldAttributes.

Missing

• BeanIO.NET exists as portable (.NET Standard 1.1) library and therefore doesn't provide any file access.
• Patterns like X###0.0X aren't supported by .NET, because there is no ParseExact for numeric types.
• JSON isn't a supported file format, because Newtonsoft.Json already supports very flexible (de-)serialization.