Yes I'ts a bug

Using also a very simple implementation of Serialization Surrogate the deserialization fail, if there is a forward reference, with a SerializationException and a message:

   "The object with ID 1 was referenced in a fixup but does not exist."

this is a sample to see the bug:

Can anyone tell me if I'm wrong or confirm the error.

Also any workaround are welcome.

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;
using System.Reflection;

namespace SerializationTest {
  static class Program {

    [STAThread]
    static void Main() {
      MyClass ci = new MyClass();
      ci.Name = "test1";
      ci.RelatedClass = ci;
      MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
      Save(ci, stream);
      ci = null;
      stream.Position = 0;
      ci = Load(stream); // This throw a SerializationException
      Console.WriteLine(ci.Name);
      stream.Close();
    }

    static void Save(MyClass app, Stream stream) {
      IFormatter myFrmt = new BinaryFormatter();

      SurrogateSelector ss = new SurrogateSelector();
      ss.AddSurrogate(typeof(MyClass), myFrmt.Context, new MySerializationSurrogate());
      myFrmt.SurrogateSelector = ss;

      myFrmt.Serialize(stream, app);
    }

    static MyClass Load(Stream stream) {
      IFormatter myFrmt = new BinaryFormatter();

      SurrogateSelector ss = new SurrogateSelector();
      ss.AddSurrogate(typeof(MyClass), myFrmt.Context, new MySerializationSurrogate());
      myFrmt.SurrogateSelector = ss;

      MyClass app = (MyClass)myFrmt.Deserialize(stream);
      return app;
    }
  }

  [Serializable]
  class MyClass {
    public MyClass RelatedClass;
    public string Name;
  }

  public class MySerializationSurrogate : ISerializationSurrogate {

    public void GetObjectData(object obj, SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context) {
      MyClass myClass = (MyClass)obj;
      info.AddValue("Name", myClass.Name);
      info.AddValue("RelatedClass", myClass.RelatedClass);
    }

    public object SetObjectData(object obj, SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context, ISurrogateSelector selector) {
      MyClass myClass = (MyClass)obj;
      myClass.Name = info.GetString("Name");
      myClass.RelatedClass = (MyClass)info.GetValue("RelatedClass", typeof(MyClass));
      return myClass;
    }
  }
}

Mauro Sturaro