PropertyRule Introduction PropertyRules are used to provide a mechanism to assign defaults to properties of a class in order to lessen the number of attributes that have to be applied when designing a particular class. As an example, one of the built-in property rules is PropertyRuleBcd. Normally, if you want to indicate a property is in BCD format you would define it as: [MessageProperty(IsBcd = true)] public int SomeBcdField { get; set; } However, the PropertyRuleBcd is designed to check if a property name starts with Bcd and if it does and IsBcd has not been explicitly set by a MessageProperty attribute on the property, then PropertyRuleBcd will set IsBcd to true. This means that all you need to do to have a BCD field is just make sure the name of the property starts with Bcd (the case of the Bcd doesn’t matter). public int BcdSomeField { get; set; } If for some reason you then had a property that you really wanted the name to start with Bcd but it is not a Bcd field then you can just set IsBcd to false and then the PropertyRuleBcd won’t be applied. [MessageProperty(IsBcd = false)] public int BcdNotReally { get; set; } To specify the PropertyRules to use for your classes they should be specified in the PropertyRules list of the that are being used for your class. The defaults mentioned below are added to the PropertyRules by default but you are free to modify the list or add to it as needed. The can be specified when you call LoadSerializableClassesFromAssembly, LoadSerializableClassesFromSettings or GetClassInfo on the Serializer class instance you are using. Note that if you don’t call one of those functions first before you call Serializer or Deserialize the default will be used. By default, the following PropertyRules are used: PropertyRuleEndianness PropertyRuleLengthField PropertyRuleBcd PropertyRuleAuthenticationField PropertyRuleDateTime PropertyRuleLengths PropertyRulePrepad