Let the World See the Carnage – Saving and Loading High Scores - Unity 4 Game Development - page 565

Classified intel
In Unity C#, we used [System.Serializable] to enable the ability to serialize this
object. Serialization is the process of translating the data structure or object state in the
format that can easily be stored (for example, a file/memory buffer, or transmitted data
across a network connection link) and reconstructed later in the same or another computer
environment.
Note
More explanation about serialization can be found from the following links:
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3042665/what-is-the-meaning-of-serialization-
concept-in-programming-languages
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serialization
Whether you add @script System.Serializable in the class or not, we will be
able to serialize them.
The serialization technique can be stored as a file and saved on your local machine too.
This is a very efficient way to save the game data, such as a player's hit point, player's loca-
tion, and enemies' hit point. To store the data to the file, we can add something similar to
the following code:
// Unity JavaScript user:
function SaveData () {
var binary : BinaryFormatter = new BinaryFormatter();
var file : FileStream = new
FileStream(Application.persistentDataPath+"/highscores.dat",
FileMode.Append);
binary.Serialize(file, _users);
}
function LoadData () {
try {
var binary : BinaryFormatter = new BinaryFormatter();
var file : FileStream = new
FileStream(Application.persistentDataPath+"/
highscoresJS.dat", FileMode.Open);