WCF: generic list serialized to array

Question

So I am working with WCF and my services return types that contain generic lists. WCF is currently converting these to arrays over the wire. Is there a way I configure WCF t

Answer 1

I found a solution that was much simpler and worked well enough for me, although it might not work for others. I simply switched from using ICollection (IList also produces this result) to List. It worked fine after that.

Solution from Here.

I also found a possible configuration solution from Here near the bottom.

<CollectionMappings>
    <CollectionMapping TypeName="ChangeTracker.ChangeTrackingCollection'1" Category="List" />
</CollectionMappings>

Answer 2

In addition, take care not to have both arrays and generics in the classes from which you serialize the instances with WCF, because you'll get a problem during deserialization : everything will be converted either to ArrayOf (if you don't change the configuration) or to Collection Type.

As result you will get errors during deserialization from the WCF code trying to assign an array where you wait a Collection and conversely.

This was just my 2cent advice from what I learned during a small project with WCF. :)

Answer 3

I think this is dent with purely from the way that the client tool generates the contracts from the WSDL. In my case, I made a reusable .dll that contains my [OperationContract] and [DataContract] classes, and use it from both the client and the server, instead of generating one with SvcUtil. This way I preserve my lists of generics.

Answer 4

Instead of use ICollection<AnotherObject> in your data contract, that will be generated in client application as a AnotherObject[].

Try this:

define a new data contract

[CollectionDataContract]
public class AnotherObjectCollection : List<AnotherObject> {}

in your code:

DataContract(IsReference = true)]
public class SampleObject
{
  [DataMember]
  public long ID { get; private set; }

  [DataMember]
  public AnotherObjectCollection Objects { get; set; }
}

in Visual Studio (same to svcUtil), the client proxy code will appear like this:

[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("System.Runtime.Serialization", "3.0.0.0")]
[System.Runtime.Serialization.CollectionDataContractAttribute(Name="AnotherObjectCollection", Namespace="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/SampleObject", ItemName="AnotherObject")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
public class AnotherObjectCollection : System.Collections.Generic.List<AnotherObject> {}

 DataContract(IsReference = true)]
    public class SampleObject
    {
      [DataMember]
      public long ID { get; private set; }

      [DataMember]
      public AnotherObjectCollection Objects { get; set; }
    }

This also works for built-in .NET types.

antonio

Answer 5

At the advanced tab when adding your service reference you can set this option as well. standard Arrays are set.