#include once "fbserialize.bi"
success = Deserialize( payload, destination )
success = Deserialize( payload, array() )

payload
destination
array()

True (-1) on success, or zero on failure. Success sets Err to zero. Failure sets Err to FB_SERIALIZE_INVALID (1) for malformed, incompatible or over-budget input, or FB_SERIALIZE_OUT_OF_MEMORY (4) for allocation or temporary-descriptor exhaustion. These constants are declared by fbserialize.bi.

Reconstruction allocates independent strings and dynamic arrays, including owned members nested inside UDTs and array elements. It never borrows storage from the input payload or the serialized source. Dynamic arrays recover their stored lower and upper bounds; an unallocated array remains unallocated and can subsequently be resized with ReDim.

The decoder validates the format version, full schema, lengths, bounds, ranks, value ranges, resource limits and end of payload before replacing the destination. On any failure the original destination remains unchanged and temporary allocations are freed. On success its old owned data is released and the reconstructed data replaces it.

A known-rank array must preserve its declared rank. Unknown-rank arrays and array parameters are supported, subject to the actual descriptor capacity supplied by the caller. Unknown and explicitly declared ranks have distinct schemas. An array parameter cannot enlarge a borrowed descriptor beyond that capacity.

Truncated input, trailing bytes, unsupported versions, schema differences and values outside a narrower native integer range are rejected. Added or renamed fields are not silently ignored. Use an application version envelope and explicit migration for evolving records, as shown in Compiler-assisted serialization.

The destination must already be a valid ordinary FreeBASIC value. The caller must synchronize concurrent access to it. This function does not receive bytes from a file or socket and does not frame stream messages.

'' examples/manual/array/deserialize.bas
''
'' FreeBASIC Manual: DESERIALIZE
'' Purpose: Restore a whole array and handle incomplete input.
'' Responsibilities: Bounds, embedded nulls and unchanged data on failure.
'' This example intentionally contains no transport framing.
'' --------

#include Once "fbserialize.bi"

Dim source(Any) As String
Dim destination(Any) As String
ReDim source(-1 To 1)
source(-1) = "first"
source(0) = "A" & Chr(0) & "B"
source(1) = "last"

'' Empty parentheses select the whole array rather than one element.
Dim As String payload = Serialize(source())
If Err <> 0 Then
    Print "Serialize failed: "; Err
    End 1
End If

'' Start with one existing element at index 7 to make retained bounds visible.
ReDim destination(7 To 7)
destination(7) = "keep this value"

'' Missing the last byte must fail before replacing any existing data.
Dim As String incomplete = Left(payload, Len(payload) - 1)
If Deserialize(incomplete, destination()) Then End 1
If Err <> FB_SERIALIZE_INVALID Then End 1
If LBound(destination) <> 7 OrElse UBound(destination) <> 7 Then End 1
If destination(7) <> "keep this value" Then End 1
Print "Incomplete input left the destination unchanged."

If Deserialize(payload, destination()) = 0 Then
    Print "Deserialize failed: "; Err
    End 1
End If

Print "Restored bounds: "; LBound(destination); " to "; UBound(destination)
Print destination(-1); " / "; destination(1)
Print "Middle string length: "; Len(destination(0))
Print "Middle byte: "; Asc(destination(0), 2)

'' end of deserialize.bas

The first decode fails without changing the existing array. The complete payload then restores bounds -1 through 1 and a three-byte middle string containing a null byte.

• Available in the -lang fb and -lang fblite dialects; unavailable in -lang qb.
  
  

• New to FreeBASIC. The public name is an opt-in macro from fbserialize.bi. Without this include, an application may still use Deserialize as its own identifier.
  
  

• Serialize
  
• Compiler-assisted serialization
  
• Get (File I/O)
  
• Err