IXmlSerializable Namespace of Wrapper Collection

Question

I am doing some custom serialization with the DataContractSerializer through use of the IXmlSerializable interface.

For example:

public class CustomPartOfAContract : IXmlSerializable
{
    public void WriteXml( XmlWriter writer )
    {
        //...
    }

    public void ReadXml( XmlReader reader )
    {
        //...
    }
}

[DataContract(Namespace="http://mynamespace.com")]
public class MyDataContract
{
    [DataMember(IsRequired=true)]
    public ICollection<CustomPartOfAContract> CustomParts { get; set; }

}

Now, in the WriteXml method I can tell the XmlWriter what namespace to use for each element I write. However I can't figure out how to specify the namespace for CustomPartOfAContract.

Outputting the XML to file, the namespace for the CustomParts property in MyDataContract is being generated from the source code namespace.

Anyone any idea how I can specify the namespace to use when serializing this?

Answer 1

Ok, I solved this by adding a custom collection class which inherits from Collection and applying the [CollectionDataContract] attribute with the correct namespace:

[CollectionDataContract( Namespace="http://mynamespace.com" )]
public class MyCustomPartsCollection : Collection<CustomPartOfAContract>
{
    public MyCustomPartsCollection()
    {
        // We need a default constructor or the serializer complains.
    }
}

And then using that in my data contract:

[DataContract(Namespace="http://mynamespace.com")]
public class MyDataContract
{
    [DataMember(IsRequired=true)]
    public MyCustomPartsCollection CustomParts { get; set; }

}

This seems to apply the correct namespace to the collection class rather than taking the namespace from the source code.