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c#xmlwcfserializationdatacontract

What is the preferred way to implement serializable classes in C#

I've seen many different ways to serialize objects in C# that I'm not sure which one to use and when.

In the current situation I'm serializing for exposure through WCF so I'm guessing the [DataContract] attribute is the way to go.

Currently I'm reading in some XML, then exposing the resulting object through WCF. So I am deserializing XML for which I have no access to the original classes (therefore I'm rebuilding the class and can implement serialization whichever way I want). Then it has to be serializable for the WCF.

But if [DataContract] is good for this case, then why wouldn't I use it all the time instead of ISerializable, or the [Serializable] attribute?

So a bit of two questions in one, which to use for this problem, and why are there different ways to serialize.

Solution

  • DataContract is a good place to start for basic serializing. But if you want to control exactly how the object is serialized use the ISerializable interface. Also, the data contract attribute does not get inherited, but the ISerializable will

    ISerializable has been around since .net 1.1. DataContract was introduced in .net 3.0 to simplify serializing for most cases.