WebAPI List Serialization XML/JSON output

Question

I tried to create a method in a ApiController that looks like this:

public DemoList<Demo> GetAll()
{
    var result = new DemoList<Demo>() { new Demo(){Y=2}, new Demo(), new Demo(){Y=1} };
    result.Name = "Test";
    return result;
}

Demo and DemoList look like this:

public interface INamedEnumerable<out T> : IEnumerable<T>
{
    string Name { get; set; }
}

public class Demo
{
    public int X { get { return 3; } }
    public int Y { get; set; }
}

public class DemoList<T> : List<T>, INamedEnumerable<T>
{
    public DemoList()
    {
    }

    public string Name { get; set; } 
}

I then cheked the ouput with fiddler

GET http://localhost:8086/api/Demo

and got the following:

XML (Accept header set to application/xml)

<ArrayOfDemo xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/XXX.WebAPI"><Demo><Y>2</Y></Demo><Demo><Y>0</Y></Demo><Demo><Y>1</Y></Demo></ArrayOfDemo>

JSON (Accept header set to application/json)

[{"X":3,"Y":2},{"X":3,"Y":0},{"X":3,"Y":1}]

My question is quite simple: Why is the X variable not serialized with the XML version (I thought that readonly properties were serialized) and more important, why in both cases is the Name property (which is writable) not serialized?? What are the alternatives to make this work like I expected?

Edit: Please, note that I'm in a WebAPI context! By default, the XmlSerializer is automatically set to XmlMediaTypeFormatter and the JSONSerializer to JsonMediaTypeFormatter

Bidou · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-07T09:37:59.403

1

This seems to be a bug... using the following workaround made the trick:

public class ListWrapper<T>
{
    public ListWrapper(INamedEnumerable<T> list)
    {
        List = new List<T>(list);
        Name = list.Name;
    }

    public List<T> List { get; set; }

    public string Name { get; set; }
}

edited Nov 07 '13 at 09:37

answered Oct 21 '13 at 05:57

Bidou

7,378
9
47
70

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 18 '13 at 14:23

0

XML serializers only allows serialization of properties with "set" provided.

answered Oct 18 '13 at 14:23

Krzysiek Bronek

146
3

Then why is `Name` not serialized? By the way, see my edit, I'm not using this serializer – Bidou Oct 18 '13 at 15:58

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

What are you using to serialize it? If you don't need attributes you could use DataContractSerializer as mentioned here. By default properties without a set are not serialized however using DataContractSerializer or implementing IXmlSerializable should do the trick for you.

using System;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Xml;
[DataContract]
class MyObject {
    public MyObject(Guid id) { this.id = id; }
    [DataMember(Name="Id")]
    private Guid id;
    public Guid Id { get {return id;}}
}
static class Program {
    static void Main() {
        var ser = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(MyObject));
        var obj = new MyObject(Guid.NewGuid());
        using(XmlWriter xw = XmlWriter.Create(Console.Out)) {
            ser.WriteObject(xw, obj);
        }
    }
}

WebAPI List Serialization XML/JSON output

3 Answers3