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silverlightserializationcollectionssilverlight-4.0datacontractserializer

Silverlight: DataContractSerializer cannot handle read only collection properties

For our Silverlight Project (SL4) I'm using a Model which might contain Lists (IList<AnotherModel>). According to good practice and rule CA2227:CollectionPropertiesShouldBeReadOnly the IList properties don't have a public setter. We serialize the Model using the DataContractSerializer which is working. But when I try to deserialize, a SecurityException is thrown by DataContractSerializer's ReadObject(Stream) Method, complaining that the target property (pointing to the IList property) cannot be set due to a missing public setter.

Since the DataContractSerializer is sealed and neither extendable nor flexible so I currently see no chance to add some kind of additional rules which allow to deserialize the ILists using a foreach-loop on Add() method or some other method of transferring the collection items.

I've also tried to dig into DataContractSerializer source (using Reflector) to create a little fork but it looks like i'd have to dig very deep and replicating whole serialization classes doesn't seem to be a viable solution.

Do you see another chance to serialize a List with no public setter using the DataContractSerializer?

Thank you very much in advance for your ideas!

UPDATE
Solved using XmlSerializer.

Thomas

Solution

  • In our case, we found out that we were not strictly bound to the DataContractSerializer, and interestingly, the XmlSerializer DOES support serialization of read-only ILists! In fact, it even doesn't allow a public setter for the IList interface in this case (cannot deserialize interface property) but (de-)serializing the ILists items works like a charm.

    Only change for us was adding [XmlInclude] attributes in addition to [KnownType] (and of course, replacing the few lines from DataContractSerializer.WriteObject(...) to XmlSerializer.Serialize(...).

    Thanks for your support! =)