When to use DataContract and DataMember attributes

Question

I am very confused about the DataContract attribute in WCF  As per my knowledge it is used for serializating user defined type like classes  I wrote one class which is exposed at client side like this    DataContract  public class Contact        DataMember      public int Roll   get  set          DataMember      public string Name   get  set          DataMember      public string Address   get  set          DataMember      public int Age   get  set        It is working properly but when I remove DataContract and DataMember it  also works properly  I can t understand why it is working properly  Can any one tell me what is the actual use of DataContract   My service contract looks like this   ServiceContract      public interface IRestServiceImpl        OperationContract              Contact XmlData string id

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Also when you call from http request it will work properly but when your try to call from net tcp that time you get all this kind stuff

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A data contract is a formal agreement between a service and a client that abstractly describes the data to be exchanged  That is  to communicate  the client and the service do not have to share the same types  only the same data contracts  A data contract precisely defines  for each parameter or return type  what data is serialized  turned into XML  to be exchanged   Windows Communication Foundation  WCF  uses a serialization engine called the Data Contract Serializer by default to serialize and deserialize data  convert it to and from XML   All  NET Framework primitive types  such as integers and strings  as well as certain types treated as primitives  such as DateTime and XmlElement  can be serialized with no other preparation and are considered as having default data contracts  Many  NET Framework types also have existing data contracts    You can find the full article here

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Data contract  It specifies that your entity class is ready for Serialization process  Data members  It specifies that the particular field is part of the data contract and it can be serialized

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A data contract is a formal agreement between a service and a client that abstractly describes the data to be exchanged   Data contract can be explicit or implicit  Simple type such as int  string etc has an implicit data contract  User defined object are explicit or Complex type  for which you have to define a Data contract using  DataContract  and  DataMember  attribute   A data contract can be defined as follows    It describes the external format of data passed to and from service operations It defines the structure and types of data exchanged in service messages It maps a CLR type to an XML Schema It defines how data types are serialized and deserialized  Through serialization  you convert an object into a sequence of bytes that can be transmitted over a network  Through deserialization  you reassemble an object from a sequence of bytes that you receive from a calling application  It is a versioning system that allows you to manage changes to structured data   We need to include System Runtime Serialization reference to the project  This assembly holds the DataContract and DataMember attribute

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DataMember attribute is not mandatory to add to serialize data  When DataMember attribute is not added  old XMLSerializer serializes the data  Adding a DataMember provides useful properties like order  name  isrequired which cannot be used otherwise

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Since a lot of programmers were overwhelmed with the  DataContract  and  DataMember  attributes  with  NET 3 5 SP1  Microsoft made the data contract serializer handle all classes - even without any of those attributes - much like the old XML serializer   So as of  NET 3 5 SP1  you don t have to add data contract or data member attributes anymore - if you don t then the data contract serializer will serialize all public properties on your class  just like the XML serializer would   HOWEVER  by not adding those attributes  you lose a lot of useful capabilities    without  DataContract   you cannot define an XML namespace for your data to live in without  DataMember   you cannot serialize non-public properties or fields without  DataMember   you cannot define an order of serialization  Order   and the DCS will serialize all properties alphabetically without  DataMember   you cannot define a different name for your property  Name   without  DataMember   you cannot define things like IsRequired  or other useful attributes without  DataMember   you cannot leave out certain public properties - all public properties will be serialized by the DCS   So for a  quick n dirty  solution  leaving away the  DataContract  and  DataMember  attributes will work - but it s still a good idea to have them on your data classes - just to be more explicit about what you re doing  and to give yourself access to all those additional features that you don t get without them

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In terms of WCF  we can communicate with the server and client through messages  For transferring messages  and from a security prospective  we need to make a data message in a serialized format   For serializing data we use  datacontract  and  datamember  attributes  In your case if you are using datacontract WCF uses DataContractSerializer else WCF uses XmlSerializer which is the default serialization technique   Let me explain in detail   basically WCF supports 3 types of serialization    XmlSerializer  DataContractSerializer NetDataContractSerializer   XmlSerializer  - Default order is Same as class  DataContractSerializer NetDataContractSerializer  - Default order is Alphabetical  XmlSerializer  - XML Schema is Extensive  DataContractSerializer NetDataContractSerializer  - XML Schema is Constrained  XmlSerializer  - Versioning support not possible  DataContractSerializer NetDataContractSerializer  - Versioning support is possible  XmlSerializer  - Compatibility with ASMX  DataContractSerializer NetDataContractSerializer  - Compatibility with  NET Remoting  XmlSerializer  - Attribute not required in XmlSerializer  DataContractSerializer NetDataContractSerializer  - Attribute required in this serializing   so what you use depends on your requirements

[wcf] When to use DataContract and DataMember attributes?

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