How do you send complex objects using WCF? Does it work? Is it good?

Question

Can I have a data contract of this shape??

[DataContract]

public class YearlyStatistic{

[DataMember]
public string Year{get;set;}

[DataMember]
public string StatisticName {get;set;}

[DataMember]
public List<MonthlyStatistic> MonthlyStats {get;set}
};

I am assuming here that class MonthlyStatistic will also need to be a DataContract. Can you do this in a web service?

Answer 1

To use the same model for web services, mark your class as Serializable use the XmlRoot and XmlElement in the System.Xml.Serialization namespace. Here is a sample using your example:

[Serializable]
[XmlRoot("YearlyStatistic")]
public class YearlyStatistic
{
    [XmlElement("Year")]
    public string Year { get; set; }

    [XmlElement("StatisticName")]
    public string StatisticName { get; set; }

    [XmlElement("MonthlyStats")]
    public List<MonthlyStatistic> MonthlyStats { get; set; } 
}

You will have to do the same thing for your complex object properties of the parent object.