Using WCF DataContract in MVC SessionState using AppFabric cache

Question

I have a Data Access Layer, a Service Layer, and a Presentation Layer. The Presentation Layer is ASP.NET MVC2 RTM (web), and the Service Layer is WCF (services). It\'s all .NET

Answer 1

As an extension to the provided answer, I added these two methods to ease storing/retrieving the data.

    public static void Set<T>(HttpSessionStateBase session, string key, T value)
    {
        session[key] = new Wrapper(value);
    }

    public static T Get<T>(HttpSessionStateBase session, string key)
    {
        object value = session[key];
        if (value != null && typeof(T) == value.GetType())
        {
            return (T) value;
        }
        Wrapper wrapper = value as Wrapper;
        return (T) ((wrapper == null) ? null : wrapper.Value);
    }

This makes it a little easier to set/get values from the session:

    MyDataContract c = ...;
    Wrapper.Set(Session, "mykey", c);
    c = Wrapper.Get<MyDataContract>(Session, "mykey");

To make it even easier, add extension methods:

public static class SessionWrapperEx
{
    public static void SetWrapped<T>(this HttpSessionStateBase session, string key, T value)
    {
        Wrapper.Set<T>(session, key, value);
    }

    public static T GetWrapped<T>(this HttpSessionStateBase session, string key)
    {
        return Wrapper.Get<T>(session, key);
    }
}

And use as below:

    MyDataContract c = ...;
    Session.SetWrapped("mykey", c);
    c = Session.GetWrapped<MyDataContract>("mykey");

Answer 2

Without going the full blown route of A or B, could you just make a generic ISerializable wrapper object and put those in your SessionState?

    [Serializable]
    public class Wrapper : ISerializable
    {
        public object Value { get; set; }

        void ISerializable.GetObjectData(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context)
        {
            if (Value != null)
            {
                info.AddValue("IsNull", false);
                if (Value.GetType().GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DataContractAttribute), false).Length == 1)
                {
                    using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
                    {
                        var serializer = new DataContractSerializer(Value.GetType());
                        serializer.WriteObject(ms, Value);
                        info.AddValue("Bytes", ms.ToArray());
                        info.AddValue("IsDataContract", true);
                    }
                }
                else if (Value.GetType().IsSerializable)
                {
                    info.AddValue("Value", Value);
                    info.AddValue("IsDataContract", false);
                }
                info.AddValue("Type", Value.GetType());
            }
            else
            {
                info.AddValue("IsNull", true);
            }
        }

        public Wrapper(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context)
        {
            if (!info.GetBoolean("IsNull"))
            {
                var type = info.GetValue("Type", typeof(Type)) as Type;

                if (info.GetBoolean("IsDataContract"))
                {
                    using (var ms = new MemoryStream(info.GetValue("Bytes", typeof(byte[])) as byte[]))
                    {
                        var serializer = new DataContractSerializer(type);
                        Value = serializer.ReadObject(ms);
                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    Value = info.GetValue("Value", type);   
                }
            }
        }
    }