WCF throttles properties without a "set". Any workaround?

Question

I have a class that I pass as a result of a service method, and this class has a get-only property:

[DataContract] public class ErrorBase { [DataMember] public virtual string Message { get { return ""; } } } 

I get an exception from the service side:

System.Runtime.Serialization.InvalidDataContractException: The method for the "Message" property of type "MyNamespace.ErrorBase" has not been set.

I should only have this property as a getter, I cannot allow users to assign a value to it. Any workaround I could use? Or am I missing an additional attribute?

Answer 1

Give a message to the public recipient, but a secure setter, so that only subclasses (and DataContractSerializer, because it is cheating :) can change the value.

Answer 2

Even if you do not need to update the value, setter is used by the WCFSerializer to deserialize the object (and override the value).

This is what you need: WCF DataContracts

Answer 3

 [DataMember(Name = "PropertyName")] public string PropertyName { get { return ""; } private set { } } 

Answer 4

If you only have a recipient, why do you need to serialize the property at all. It looks like you can remove the DataMember attribute for a read-only property, and the serializer will simply ignore the property.

Answer 5

Could you just configure do-nothing?

 [DataContract] public class ErrorBase { [DataMember] public virtual string Message { get { return ""; } set { } } } 

Or does the DataContract barf serializer also do the same?

Answer 6

Properties with the DataMember attribute always require a set. You must rewrite the simmilar object to the client application, since DataContract members can always be assigned values.

Answer 7

I had this problem with ASP.NET MVC, and I wanted to use the DataContractSerializer to be able to control element names in JSON output. In the end, I switched the serializer to JSON.NET, which supports properties without setters (without DataContractSerializer) and property name control (which the built-in JSON serializer in ASP.NET MVC does not) through [JsonProperty(PropertyName = "myName")] .

Answer 8

If this is a viable option, then instead of ErrorBase , define it as the base class as follows:

  public interface IError { string Message { [OperationContract] get; // leave unattributed set; } } 

Now, despite the fact that the setter exists, it is not available to the client through the WCF channel, so it is as if closed.