How to deserialize a different interface implementation with wcf

Question

Following situation:

Our software works with business objects, at the moment they are sent with wcf from the server to the client.

[Serializable]
public class SomeValueBO
{
   public DateTime Timestamp{ get; set; }
}

They are packed in request/response messages.

[DataContract]
public class Response
{
  [DataMember]
  public List<SomeValueBO> Values { get; set; }
}

The Problem:

We would like to send DTO's to the client instead of the business object's. I heard, that it is possible to retrieve at the client an instance of a different type than was sent on the server.

Example:

public interface ISomeValue
{
   DateTime Timestamp { get; set; }
}

[Serializable]
public class SomeValueBO : ISomeValue
{
   public DateTime Timestamp { get; set; }
}

[DataContract]
public class SomeValueDTO : ISomeValue
{
   [DataMember]
   public DateTime Timestamp { get; set; }
}

The response would look like this:

[DataContract]
public class Response
{
   [DataMember]
   public List<ISomeValue> Values { get; set; }
}

On the server:

public class ServiceClass : IService
{
   public Response HandleRequest(Request request)
   {
      Response response = new Response();
      response.Values.Add(new SomeValueBO());

      return response;
   }
}

On The client:

Response response = serviceProxy.HandleRequest(request);
ISomeValue value = response.Values[0];

value is SomeValueDTO

I tried it with declaring only the known type of the DTO object and with Data Contract Equivalence, but WCF still keep deserializing the item as a BO instance.

I have to add, that both ways have to work, Sending the BO and retrieving it as a BO and sending the BO and retrieving a DTO, but of course with different requests.

So my question is, is this possible and if yes, what am I doing wrong?

Thanks for help, Enyra

Edit: I also found out, that we are using the NetDataSerializer, could that be the problem that it does not work?

what is the message protocol you're using? Is there a reason why you're not simply sending the dto from the server? In the long run this (what you're trying to do) could be a maintenance nightmare. — Shiv Kumar, Feb 18 '11 at 08:01
Yes there is a reason, we load values > 10'000, if we copy them, it will become slow, so we would use this trick to convert it. — Enyra, Feb 18 '11 at 10:49

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:47

Even if you weren't using NetDataContractSerializer (comment), the fact that SomeValueBO isn't declared as a data-contract means that it will mainly be acting as a field-serializer. Which is a pain in particular because automatically-implemented properties are a royal pain re field serializers - they become insanely brittle.

I would declare as a contract:

[DataContract]
public class SomeValueBO
{
   [DataMember]
   public DateTime Timestamp{ get; set; }
}

and switch to DataContractSerializer, but note that this is a breaking change - you would have to update all clients and servers at the same time. You would then be able to have alternative implementations as long as they shared the full contract signature.

Re the current use of NetDataContractSerializer - if this is for performance, there are alternatives - there are contract based binary serializers that are faster (CPU) and smaller (bandwidth) than NetDataContractSerializer: Performance Tests of Serializations used by WCF Bindings

I also made some tries with specifying the data contract, in my post I just used the original form of the bo spec. — Enyra, Feb 18 '11 at 10:46

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 18 '11 at 09:25

From MSDN:

The NetDataContractSerializer differs from the DataContractSerializer in one important way: the NetDataContractSerializer includes CLR type information in the serialized XML, whereas the DataContractSerializer does not. Therefore, the NetDataContractSerializer can be used only if both the serializing and deserializing ends share the same CLR types.

That's why it's not working at present.

If you use the DataContractSerializer instead, the client and the service only need to agree on the serialized XML representation of the object state, not on the exact CLR runtime type. You'll need to attribute both sides' types with DataContractAttribute in order to get the XML namespace associated with the serialized representation the same on both sides. And obviously the data contracts will have to be equivalent in terms of the serialized structure.

That said, what you are trying to do should be workable with the DataContractSerializer. As for whether it's the best way to go - like all design decisions "it depends".

How to deserialize a different interface implementation with wcf

2 Answers2