Generic Google Protocol Buffers serializer for Akka.NET

Example.cs

using System;
using Akka.Actor;
using Akka.Configuration;
using Akka.Serialization.Protobuf;
using ProtoBuf;

namespace App
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Interface used to recognize messages to be serialized by <see cref="ProtobufSerializer"/>.
    /// </summary>
    public interface IProto { }

    [ProtoContract]
    public sealed class TestMessage : IProto
    {
        [ProtoMember(1)]
        public int Id { get; }

        [ProtoMember(2)]
        public string Body { get; }

        // Protobuf-net requires class to provide parameterless constructor
        // however it may be private.
        private TestMessage() { }

        public TestMessage(int id, string body)
        {
            Id = id;
            Body = body;
        }
    }
    
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // configure serializer via HOCON
            var config = ConfigurationFactory.ParseString(@"
                akka.actor {
                    serializers.protobuf = ""Akka.Serialization.Protobuf.ProtobufSerializer, Akka.Serialization.Protobuf""
                    serialization-bindings {
                        ""App.IProto, App"" = protobuf
                    }
                }");

            using (var system = ActorSystem.Create("system", config))
            {
                var msg = new TestMessage(123, "Hello world!");
                var serializer = system.Serialization.FindSerializerForType(msg.GetType());
                var bin = serializer.ToBinary(msg);
                var des = serializer.FromBinary(bin, typeof(TestMessage));
            }
        }
    }
}

ProtobufSerializer.cs

using System;
using System.IO;
using Akka.Actor;

namespace Akka.Serialization.Protobuf
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Generic Google Protocol Buffers serializer for Akka.NET using Marc Gravell protobuf-net.
    /// </summary>
    public sealed class ProtobufSerializer : Serializer
    {
        public ProtobufSerializer(ExtendedActorSystem system) : base(system)
        {
        }

        public override byte[] ToBinary(object obj)
        {
            using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
            {
                ProtoBuf.Serializer.Serialize(stream, obj);
                return stream.ToArray();
            }
        }

        public override object FromBinary(byte[] bytes, Type type)
        {
            using (var stream = new MemoryStream(bytes))
            {
                return ProtoBuf.Serializer.Deserialize(type, stream);
            }
        }

        public override bool IncludeManifest => false;

        public override int Identifier => 127;
    }
}

How would this work together with .proto files? Their generated types have no common interface afaik.

@beachwalker this approach uses Marc Gravell's Protobuf library which - at least at the moment of writing that snippet - was not using .proto files. Re. generated types - in almost all cases they use partial classes, which gives you an opportunity to extend them with empty interface that can be used for serializer binding.