API reference

The public API of the AvroSharp packages, generated from the XML documentation in the source.

Namespace	What it holds
AvroSharp	The exceptions: AvroException, AvroDataException for malformed data, AvroSchemaException for invalid schemas
AvroSharp.Schemas	The schema model and parser, Parsing Canonical Form, fingerprints, logical types
AvroSharp.IO	AvroWriter and AvroReader: the binary encoding over spans, buffer writers and sequences
AvroSharp.Generic	AvroValue, GenericRecord, and the generic binary and JSON readers and writers, with schema resolution
AvroSharp.Containers	Object container files, sync and async, with seeking and pipelined reading; AvroCodec, DeflateCodec, and AvroCodecNames, the codec names of the specification
AvroSharp.Codecs	The snappy, zstandard, bzip2 and xz codecs (the AvroSharp.Codecs package)
AvroSharp.Messages	Single-object encoding and schema-registry framing, with the schema resolvers and their in-memory stores
AvroSharp.Streams	Streams of objects without a container
AvroSharp.Serialization	AvroSerializer, the interfaces generated types implement, the logical-value conversions, and the read and write delegates
AvroSharp.Serialization.Generated	The support that generated code calls; not for direct use (see the compatibility policy in the design notes). It has no page in this reference
AvroSharp.CodeGen	The C# code generation engine (the AvroSharp.CodeGen package)
AvroSharp.Confluent	Confluent Schema Registry serializers and deserializers for Confluent.Kafka (the AvroSharp.Confluent package; see its guide)
AvroSharp.KafkaFlow	KafkaFlow serializer middleware on AvroSharp.Confluent (the AvroSharp.KafkaFlow package; see its guide)
AvroSharp.Azure.SchemaRegistry	An Azure Schema Registry serializer for Event Hubs and Service Bus messages (the AvroSharp.Azure.SchemaRegistry package; see its guide)
AvroSharp.Aws.Glue	A managed AWS Glue Schema Registry serializer (the AvroSharp.Aws.Glue package; see its guide)
AvroSharp.Aws.Glue.Kafka	Confluent.Kafka serializers on it (the AvroSharp.Aws.Glue.Kafka package)

Where to start

• Parse a schema: AvroSchema.Parse and AvroSchema.ParseAsync, with AvroSchemaParseOptions. To parse several files that refer to each other by name, use AvroSchemaParser. AvroSchema.CanonicalForm and SchemaFingerprint give the Parsing Canonical Form and its fingerprints. An invalid schema raises AvroSchemaException.
• Read and write generic values: GenericDatumWriter.Create and GenericDatumReader.Create, which takes a reader schema for schema resolution. Values are AvroValue; records are GenericRecord.
• Generated types: AvroSerializer.Serialize, AvroSerializer.TrySerialize and AvroSerializer.Deserialize, for types that implement IAvroSerializable<TSelf>.
• Your own C# types: [AvroSerializable] on a partial class gives it the members of a generated type, with the schema built from its members. The other attributes in AvroSharp.Serialization, such as AvroName, AvroDecimal and AvroUnion, adjust the schema.
• A type's serializers by Type: AvroTypes gives an AvroTypeInfo<T> (schema, read and write functions) for every generated type and the primitives, without reflection, on every target.
• Container files: AvroFileWriter.Create, AvroFileWriter.CreateGeneric, AvroFileReader.Open, AvroFileReader.OpenGeneric and their async forms. The options are AvroFileWriterOptions, whose Codec is an AvroCodec, and AvroFileReaderOptions, whose Codecs can be AvroCodecs.All from the AvroSharp.Codecs package.
• Messages: AvroMessage and AvroMessageReader.Create for single-object encoding, which finds schemas by fingerprint through an IAvroSchemaResolver such as AvroSchemaStore. AvroRegistryMessage and AvroRegistryMessageReader.Create for schema-registry framing, chosen with an AvroRegistryFraming, which find schemas by ID through an IAvroSchemaIdResolver such as AvroSchemaIdStore.
• Streams: AvroStreamWriter.Create and AvroStreamReader.Open, with AvroStreamOptions, for objects one after another with no container.
• JSON: GenericDatumJsonWriter.Create and GenericDatumJsonReader.Create, for the Avro JSON encoding; AvroSchema.ToJson for the schema itself.
• Kafka with Confluent Schema Registry: AvroSharpSerializer<T> and AvroSharpDeserializer<T>, set on Confluent.Kafka's builders with AvroSharpSerdeExtensions, from the AvroSharp.Confluent package. With KafkaFlow, AvroSharpKafkaFlowExtensions from the AvroSharp.KafkaFlow package.
• Azure Event Hubs and Service Bus with Azure Schema Registry: AvroSharpSchemaRegistrySerializer, from the AvroSharp.Azure.SchemaRegistry package.
• AWS Glue Schema Registry, with Kafka (MSK) or Kinesis: AvroSharpGlueSerializer from the AvroSharp.Aws.Glue package, and its Kafka serializers, AvroSharpGlueKafkaExtensions, from AvroSharp.Aws.Glue.Kafka.
• Low-level binary encoding: AvroWriter and AvroReader.
• Code generation: CSharpCodeGenerator.Generate with CodeGenOptions, and SchemaFileSet to parse a set of schema files together.

.NET 8 and later only

The reference is built from the net10.0 build, so it shows every member. These need .NET 8 or later, because they rely on static abstract interface members; on .NET Standard and .NET Framework, the overloads that take a schema and the generated Write/Read delegates do the same:

Member	On every target
IAvroSerializable<TSelf>, which generated types implement with C# 11 or later	the generated static Schema, Write and Read
AvroSerializer.Serialize<T>, TrySerialize<T>, Deserialize<T>	value.ToAvroBytes(), T.FromAvroBytes(bytes)
AvroFileWriter.Create<T>(stream), AvroFileReader.Open<T>(stream), OpenAsync<T>(stream)	AvroFileWriter.Create<T>(stream, T.Schema, T.Write), AvroFileReader.Open<T>(stream, _ => T.Read)
AvroStreamWriter.Create<T>(stream), AvroStreamReader.Open<T>(stream)	the overloads with T.Write and T.Read
AvroMessage.ToArray<T>/Write<T>, AvroMessageReader.Create<T>	the overloads with the schema and T.Write, or a createReader delegate
AvroRegistryMessage.ToArray<T>/Write<T>, AvroRegistryMessageReader.Create<T>	the overloads with T.Write, or a createReader delegate