Why does Newtonsoft.Json serializes byte[] as base64 but sbyte[] not?

Question

byte[] encoding in base64,sbyte[] does not.

byte[] bs = {100,101};
Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(bs);//"ZGU="

sbyte[] sbs = {100,101};
Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(sbs);//"[100,101]"

Answer 1

It's just the way JSON.Net works, and I would suspect most serialisers do the same. Check the documentation which explicitly says that byte[] is serialised as a base64 encoded string.

All other arrays are treated as you would expect, as simple JSON array types where the elements are serialised according to the rules for the array's type. Meaning that sbyte[] will be serialised as an array of integers.

Answer 2

The serialization guide in the documentation for JSON.Net shows that there is no serialization rule for sbyte[] array. There is, however, an entry for sbyte. sbyte will be serialized as int.

byte[] arrays will be serialized to a base64 string since it is explicitly defined in the guide, and as a convenience.

Since there is no rule for sbyte[] in the serialization guide the array will be treated like any other array, and it's members will be serialized according to the guide. Therefore, sbyte[] is serialised to int[] since sbyte serilaizes to int.

Please see image below: