Serialization

Serialization in WCF

Serialization is the process of converting an object into a stream of bytes in order to store the object or transmit it to memory, a database, or a file.

Microsoft page Serialization

The following example demonstrates Serialization in WCF:

[ServiceContract(Namespace="https://Microsoft.ServiceModel.Samples")]   
public interface IPerson 
{

    [OperationContract]
    void Add(Person person);

    [DataContract]
    public class Person
    {
        private int id;

        [DataMember]
        public int Age{ set; get;}
    }
}

1. [DataContract] Attribute is used with the classes. Here it is decorated with Person class.

2. [OperationContract] is used for methods. Here it is decorated with Add method.

3. [DataMember] Attribute is used with the properties. those who are decorated with [DataMember] Attributes only those will be available for the proxy to access. Here we have 2 properties in that id is not accessible and Age is accessible.

4. [DataMember] Attribute is handy when you don’t want to show private fields to outside world and only want to show public properties.

5. With [DataMember] Attribute you have some properties stick to it. they are as follows

Properties of DataMember

a. IsRequiredcan be used like this [DataMember(IsRequired=true)]

b. Name can be used like this [DataMember(Name=“RegistrationNo”)]

c. order can be used like this [DataMember(order=1)]

Without specifying attributes, we won’t be able to access the class/ method/ property in projects whom we work with (this exmple wcf service interface).

The way these attributes make the code accessible through individual projects at runtime is called “Serialization”.

• With WCF you can communicate with other projects, applications or any other software using serialization, without all the work of setting up the endpoints, creating streams manually and maintaining them. Not to mention converting all of the data into bytes and vice versa.