Is it possible to serialize objects without a parameterless constructor in WCF?

Question

I know that a private parameterless constructor works but what about an object with no parameterless constructors?

I would like to expose types from a third party library so I have no control over the type definitions.

If there is a way what is the easiest? E.g. I don't what to have to create a sub type.

Edit:

What I'm looking for is something like the level of customization shown here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163902.aspx although I don't want to have to resort to streams to serialize/deserialize.

Answer 1

You can't really make arbitrary types serializable; in some cases (XmlSerializer, for example) the runtime exposes options to spoof the attributes. But DataContractSerializer doesn't allow this. Feasible options:

• hide the classes behind your own types that are serializable (lots of work)
• provide binary formatter surrogates (yeuch)
• write your own serialization core (a lot of work to get right)

Essentially, if something isn't designed for serialization, very little of the framework will let you serialize it.

Answer 2

I am not a WCF expert but it is unlikely that they support serialization on a constructor with arbitrary types. Namely because what would they pass in for values? You could pass null for reference types and empty values for structs. But what good would a type be that could be constructed with completely empty data?

I think you are stuck with 1 of 2 options

1. Sub class the type in question and pass appropriate default values to the non-parameterless constructor
2. Create a type that exists soley for serialization. Once completed it can create an instance of the original type that you are interested in. It is a bridge of sorts.

Personally I would go for #2. Make the class a data only structure and optimize it for serialization and factory purposes.

Answer 3

I just ran a little test, using a WCF Service that returns an basic object that does not have a default constructor.

//[DataContract]
//[Serializable]
public class MyObject
{
    public MyObject(string _name)
    {
        Name = _name;
    }

    //[DataMember]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    //[DataMember]
    public string Address { get; set; }
}

Here is what the service looks like:

public class MyService : IMyService
{
    #region IMyService Members

    public MyObject GetByName(string _name)
    {
        return new MyObject(_name) { Address = "Test Address" };
    }

    #endregion
}

This actually works, as long as MyObject is either a [DataContract] or [Serializable]. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to need the default constructor on the client side. There is a related post here:

How does WCF deserialization instantiate objects without calling a constructor?