WCF Dictionary implementing IXmlSerializable

Question

I have some WCF services which employes default DataContractSerialization. Some of the service methods return Dictionary objects. One of the clients are generating XSD files from WCF services (biztalk related) and he is requesting to convert all dictionary types to a new dictionary type which implements IXmlSerializable. I wonder, if there will be any unexpected results of this conversion which may affect the DataContract serialization somehow?

Update: Server and client share the same domain dlls, clients do not generate them from service. Maybe in the question I was missing the main point; I wonder if an object is to be serizalized through datacontract serialization, implementing IXmlSerializable in the object will cause any problems.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 07 '12 at 10:54

0

There is an unexpected problem; since domain objects are already implementing data contract serialization, there is no way to implement IXmlSerializable without modifying the whole serialization mechanism.

answered Jul 07 '12 at 10:54

daryal

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 22 '12 at 10:03

Is your client sharing dlls with the service?

Unless he is sharing libraries (dlls) with service then making changes at the service end won't make any difference. Your WCF is returning data, not classes. That data is being reconstituted into classes which are created by the client based on the definitions in the WSDL your service returns. You can't control those generated libraries (by making chnages on the server) unless you share dlls between the client and the server.

If he wants to wrap the generated dictionaries in an IXmlSerializable dictionary then he can, or if he wants to generate a different type of dictionary then he can probably do that as well, but I don't think there is anything you can do server side.

client and service share the same domain dlls. Maybe in the question I was missing the main point; I wonder if an object is to be serizalized through datacontract serialization, implementing IXmlSerializable in the object will cause any problems. — daryal, Mar 22 '12 at 10:10

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 22 '12 at 10:09

Tell your client to use the following serializable dictionary when they need to serialize a dictionary result from a service call: C# Serializable Dictionary – a Working Example

It accepts an ordinary dictionary as constructor argument thus converts any dictionary into a serializable one. You can also return SerializableDictionary type as the service call result if you like.

WCF Dictionary implementing IXmlSerializable

3 Answers3