How to Serialize property of type ICollection while using Entity Framework

Question

I have a class as shown below

public class Survey
    {
        public Survey()
        {
            SurveyResponses=new List();
              


        

Answer 1

I used Matthew Merryfull solution and it works.

Since I am using EF designer for entity generation each time I update my models I would loose manual changes. I had to change *.tt which is used for generation of models. I edited few lines:

   public string NavigationProperty(NavigationProperty navigationProperty)
{
var enbleWebService = string.Empty;
if(navigationProperty.ToEndMember.RelationshipMultiplicity == RelationshipMultiplicity.Many ){
enbleWebService = string.Format("[XmlIgnore]{0}[IgnoreDataMember]{0}", Environment.NewLine);
}
    var endType = _typeMapper.GetTypeName(navigationProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType());
    return string.Format(
        CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
        "{5} {0} {1} {2} {{ {3}get; {4}set; }}",
        AccessibilityAndVirtual(Accessibility.ForProperty(navigationProperty)),
        navigationProperty.ToEndMember.RelationshipMultiplicity == RelationshipMultiplicity.Many ? ("ICollection<" + endType + ">") : endType,
        _code.Escape(navigationProperty),
        _code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForGetter(navigationProperty)),
        _code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForSetter(navigationProperty)),
         _code.Escape(enbleWebService));
}

 public string NavigationProperty(NavigationProperty navigationProperty)
{
var enbleWebService = string.Empty;
if(navigationProperty.ToEndMember.RelationshipMultiplicity == RelationshipMultiplicity.Many ){
    enbleWebService = string.Format("[XmlIgnore]{0}[IgnoreDataMember]{0}", Environment.NewLine);
}
    var endType = _typeMapper.GetTypeName(navigationProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType());
    return string.Format(
        CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
        "{5} {0} {1} {2} {{ {3}get; {4}set; }}",
        AccessibilityAndVirtual(Accessibility.ForProperty(navigationProperty)),
        navigationProperty.ToEndMember.RelationshipMultiplicity == RelationshipMultiplicity.Many ? ("ICollection<" + endType + ">") : endType,
        _code.Escape(navigationProperty),
        _code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForGetter(navigationProperty)),
        _code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForSetter(navigationProperty)),
         _code.Escape(enbleWebService));
}

Also check this article in case you run into problem with serialization http://geekswithblogs.net/danemorgridge/archive/2010/05/04/entity-framework-4-wcf-amp-lazy-loading-tip.aspx