Serializing object that inherits from List

Question

When I try to serialize this collection, the name property is not serialized.

public class BCollection : List where T : B_Button
{       
          


        

Answer 1

In many serializers (and data-binding, in fact), an object is either an entity or (exclusive) a list; having properties on a list is not commonly supported. I would refactor to encapsulate the list:

public class Foo<T> {
    public string Name {get;set;}
    private readonly List<T> items = new List<T>();
    public List<T> Items { get { return items; } }
}

Also; how would you plan on representing that in JSON? IIRC the JSON array syntax doesn't allow for extra properties either.