How to serialize Entity Framework object with SoapFormatter?

Question

I want to serialize an Entity Framework object (User) and send it to a php script using a typical webClient.OpenWrite method. I don't know if its a good approach or not, but i got dozens of problems with SOAP object serialization.

My initial "User" entity looks like this:

[Table("TableUsers")]
public class User
{
    public User()
    {
        Products = new HashSet<Product>();
    }
    public int Id { get; set; }

    [Required]
    [StringLength(4000)]
    [Index(IsUnique = true)]
    public string UserName { get; set; }

    [StringLength(4000)]
    public string UserCookie { get; set; }

    [StringLength(4000)]
    public string CompanyName { get; set; }
    ...
    public virtual ICollection<Product> Products { get; set; }
}

And when i tried to serialize all these things and send it to a server with the next piece of code:

using (Stream postStream = Client.OpenWrite("http://test.com/analytics.php"))
{
    SoapFormatter formatter = new SoapFormatter();
    formatter.Serialize(postStream, user);
}

At first i got an unhandled exception telling me that

Soap Serializer does not support serializing Generic Types ...

Okey, fine. I marked my Product collection with [SoapIgnore] attribute. And seems that this attribute is not working because i got the same error. Then i decided to delete User Constructor from User class and bingo! serialization is performed! (okey, i can live without interface inicialization)

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:clr="http://schemas.microsoft.com/soap/encoding/clr/1.0" SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
<i2:User_782DCAD431DFFDCAE6D6A91B7338AB23B0463133F84A5181874089B6BAEBDBC5 id="ref-1" xmlns:i2="http://test.com">
<User_x002B__x003C_Id_x003E_k__BackingField>6</User_x002B__x003C_Id_x003E_k__BackingField>
<User_x002B__x003C_UserName_x003E_k__BackingField id="ref-3">user@test.com</User_x002B__x003C_UserName_x003E_k__BackingField>...

I want to make my soap query more readable, and give them real names (id name, ...) insted of (AvitoUser_x002B__x003C_UserName_x003E_k__BackingField ) And again, such attributes like [MessageBodyMember(Name = "Name")] do not working. I marked my Class as [Serializable, MessageContract] and there still no changes.
Finally, i used attributes like [DataContract(Name = "User"] and [DataMember(Name = "Name")]. As the result, instead of full soap envelope Fiddler showed me only a part of it!

What is wrong with this soapFormatter? why there is no exeptions? how should i mark all this classes and properties to make a pretty printed soap query?

I believe you should extract a DTO of your user object and send serialized presentation of it, instead of messing with your Entity Framework object. That's cleaner, more extensible and safe. — Red, Mar 08 '16 at 18:59
Thanks, using DTO is a good solution in my case. I want recommend everyone DO NOT EVEN THINK about entity object serialization. This road leads to nowhere. I found an article how to set up relationship between DTO and Entity: [Mapping Entity Framework Entities to DTOs with AutoMapper](http://www.exceptionnotfound.net/entity-framework-and-wcf-mapping-entities-to-dtos-with-automapper/) — Trinitron, Mar 09 '16 at 13:49

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 08 '16 at 18:53

Try put this at your context class:

public class MyContext : DbContext 
{ 
    public MyContext() 
    { 
        this.Configuration.ProxyCreationEnabled = false; 
    }  
....
}

Here is the link with more details: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/jj592886.aspx

How to serialize Entity Framework object with SoapFormatter?

1 Answers1