What type of serialization uses Wcf behind the scenes?

Question

I know there's 3 type s of serialization in .net :

Soap , Xml , Binary.

Wcf instructed the DataContract attribute which also serialize ... but via what ?

Binary is not - i know.

So by which mechanism ?

score 16 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 03 '11 at 08:27

16

It is the binding defined for the given endpoint which specifies the serialization mechanism. For example:

basicHttpBinding and wsHttpBinding use SOAP
netTcpBinding uses binary serialization
webHttpBinding could use XML, Json, ...

You can read more about the different built-in bindings and their properties on this article. Thanks to the extensibility of WCF you could of course write your own custom bindings.

answered Sep 03 '11 at 08:27

Darin Dimitrov

1,023,142
271
3,287
2,928

Soap is not a serialization mechanism. – Michael Freidgeim Jul 21 '13 at 08:38

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 03 '11 at 08:45

15

You are messing two techniques together.

Serialization - how objects are converted to messages - we have XML and JSON formatters available out of the box (DataContractSerializer, DataContractJsonSerializer, XmlSerializer)
Encoding - how the message is transferred - we have three encoders out of the box
- TextMessageEncoder - for SOAP messages transferred as text - also supports MTOM and POX (Plain old XML) if message version is set to None
- BinaryMessageEncoder - for XML/SOAP messages transferred as binary data
- WebMessageEncoder - for XML and JSON messages in REST services

These features are used by standard bindings. WCF support as many serializations and encoding as you want => you can build your own.

answered Sep 03 '11 at 08:45

Ladislav Mrnka

360,892
59
660
670

Is there any implementation of a binary serialization? I do not want the serializer to transmit property names each and every time it sends out a property? – Omtara Jul 16 '12 at 13:23
1

Can I specify in wshttpbinding to use dataContractJsonSerializer ? – Michael Freidgeim Jul 21 '13 at 10:43
2

@MichaelFreidgeim: No. WsHttpBinding is for Soap services. – Ladislav Mrnka Jul 22 '13 at 09:56

What type of serialization uses Wcf behind the scenes?

2 Answers2

Linked