Serialization and inheritance

On both client and server side I have this DataContract and the
communication works fine:

[DataContract(Name = "Person", Namespace = "ServiceLibrary")]
public class Person
{
[DataMember]
public int Id;
[DataMember]
public string FirstName;
[DataMember]
public string LastName;
}

Now I want to change ONLY client to something like this:

[DataContract(Namespace = "ServiceLibrary")]
public class PersonBase
{
[DataMember]
public string LastName;
}

[DataContract(Name = "Person", Namespace = "ServiceLibrary")]
public class Person : PersonBase
{
[DataMember]
public int Id;
[DataMember]
public string FirstName;
}


I tried with various attributes combination to get the thing working but
without success.
Is there any documentation on the subject?
Does anyone has the idea weather something like this is possible?

Thanks,
Igor.

Hello Igor,

I think the problem you are running into is that the order of the members
has to match. It serializes the base class first, so LastName is first, unlike
Id in the original contract (plain alphabetically). Use the Order property
to force the correct order.

Thanks,

Juval Lowy.




> On both client and server side I have this DataContract and the
> communication works fine:
>
> [DataContract(Name = "Person", Namespace = "ServiceLibrary")]
> public class Person
> {
> [DataMember]
> public int Id;
> [DataMember]
> public string FirstName;
> [DataMember]
> public string LastName;
> }
> Now I want to change ONLY client to something like this:
>
> [DataContract(Namespace = "ServiceLibrary")]
> public class PersonBase
> {
> [DataMember]
> public string LastName;
> }
> [DataContract(Name = "Person", Namespace = "ServiceLibrary")]
> public class Person : PersonBase
> {
> [DataMember]
> public int Id;
> [DataMember]
> public string FirstName;
> }
> I tried with various attributes combination to get the thing working
> but
> without success.
> Is there any documentation on the subject?
> Does anyone has the idea weather something like this is possible?
> Thanks,
> Igor.

Thanks Juval I got that working, although imho, it is pretty strange
that the order of the elements in the message means so much to the
formatter.


Juval Lowy wrote:
> Hello Igor,
>
> I think the problem you are running into is that the order of the
> members has to match. It serializes the base class first, so LastName is
> first, unlike Id in the original contract (plain alphabetically). Use
> the Order property to force the correct order.
> Thanks,
>
> Juval Lowy.
>
>
>
>> On both client and server side I have this DataContract and the
>> communication works fine:
>>
>> [DataContract(Name = "Person", Namespace = "ServiceLibrary")]
>> public class Person
>> {
>> [DataMember]
>> public int Id;
>> [DataMember]
>> public string FirstName;
>> [DataMember]
>> public string LastName;
>> }
>> Now I want to change ONLY client to something like this:
>>
>> [DataContract(Namespace = "ServiceLibrary")]
>> public class PersonBase
>> {
>> [DataMember]
>> public string LastName;
>> }
>> [DataContract(Name = "Person", Namespace = "ServiceLibrary")]
>> public class Person : PersonBase
>> {
>> [DataMember]
>> public int Id;
>> [DataMember]
>> public string FirstName;
>> }
>> I tried with various attributes combination to get the thing working
>> but
>> without success.
>> Is there any documentation on the subject?
>> Does anyone has the idea weather something like this is possible?
>> Thanks,
>> Igor.
>
>