ObservableCollection and CollectionChanged event as WCF datacontract

Question

I use DataContract with ObservableCollection:

[DataContract(Namespace = Terms.MyNamespace)]
public class MyContract 
{
internal MyContract ()
        {
            List = new ObservableCollection<string>();
        }
[DataMember]
private ObservableCollection<string> list;

[XmlArray("list")]
        public ObservableCollection<string> List
        {
            get
            {
                return list;
            }
            set
            {
                list = value;
                list.CollectionChanged += (s, e) =>
                    { 
                        Console.WriteLine("It is never happens!! Why?"); 
                    };
            }
        }
...

So, when I work with my collection like this.

MyContract contract = new MyContract();
contract.List.Add("some");

Item was been added but CollectionChanged event not fired.

Why?

Answer 1

That is because you don't serialize List while serialize list. So, during deserialization it won't call setter of list, therefore won't subscribe to event. In your case you can simply mark List with DataMemberAttribute instead of list, e.g.:

[DataContract]
public class MyContract
{
    private ObservableCollection<string> list;

    internal MyContract()
    {
        List = new ObservableCollection<string>();
    }

    [DataMember]
    public ObservableCollection<string> List
    {
        get
        {
            return list;
        }
        private set
        {
            list = value;
            list.CollectionChanged += 
               (s, e) => 
                   Console.WriteLine("It is never happens!! Why? - Are you sure?!");
        }
    }
}

Usage:

var obj = new MyContract();

var serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(MyContract));

using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
{
    serializer.WriteObject(ms, obj);

    ms.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);

    var result = serializer.ReadObject(ms) as MyContract;

    result.List.Add("a");
}

In this case event will fire.