All Enums evaluates to 0 when sending a request to a WCF service from a WCF test client

Question

I have a very strange issue, I am sending a request from a WCF Test Client, I want to test my soap service, all enums evaluates to Zero. The Enums look like this:

[DataContract]
[Flags]
public enum Gender
{
    [EnumMember]
    Female= 1,
    [EnumMember]
    Male= 2
}

After intense Googling I learnt that adding the attributes [DataContract], [Flags] and [EnumMember] should resolve the issue but still no luck

ErrorMessage:

System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException: 'There was an error while trying to serialize parameter http://tempuri.org/:methodCallRequest. The InnerException message was 'Enum value '0' is invalid for type 'Gender' and cannot be serialized. Ensure that the necessary enum values are present and are marked with EnumMemberAttribute attribute if the type has DataContractAttribute attribute.'. Please see InnerException for more details.'

InnerException:

SerializationException: Enum value '0' is invalid for type 'Gender' and cannot be serialized. Ensure that the necessary enum values are present and are marked with EnumMemberAttribute attribute if the type has DataContractAttribute attribute.

Are you really stuck and locked in hard with using (the almost dead) WCF? — Fildor, Mar 10 '22 at 09:32
can you please share the snapshot of test client /output, it might probably help to know more. — mabiyan, Mar 10 '22 at 09:33
@ashwathmabiyan : Here is the error: System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException: 'There was an error while trying to serialize parameter http://tempuri.org/:methodCallRequest. The InnerException message was 'Enum value '0' is invalid for type 'Gender' and cannot be serialized. Ensure that the necessary enum values are present and are marked with EnumMemberAttribute attribute if the type has DataContractAttribute attribute.'. Please see InnerException for more details.' — MswatiLomnyama, Mar 10 '22 at 09:40
I believe the attribute `Flag` is not required here as its a simple `enum`, for more detail read have a look at this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8447/what-does-the-flags-enum-attribute-mean-in-c ; Did you try changing the `datacontract` name to `[DataContract(Name = "Gender")]` — mabiyan, Mar 10 '22 at 09:59
looking at an `innerexception` sounds like the `enum` must have a value `0`, Consider having `NA` as your first `enum` value if possible, if not i would say don't initialize the value to the `enum` props with values `1` and `2` so that it will take default values i.e., 0 and 1. Please check the Do's and Don'ts here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/design-guidelines/enum — mabiyan, Mar 10 '22 at 12:05

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 10 '22 at 14:20

0

Adding the attribute [DataMember(IsRequired = true)] on the Gender Enum property and also adding [DataContract] attribute on the object header resolved the issue

answered Mar 10 '22 at 14:20

MswatiLomnyama

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All Enums evaluates to 0 when sending a request to a WCF service from a WCF test client

1 Answers1