IXmlSerializable Namespace of Wrapper Collection

Question

I am doing some custom serialization with the DataContractSerializer through use of the IXmlSerializable interface.

For example:

public class CustomPartOfAContract : IXmlSerializable
{
    public void WriteXml( XmlWriter writer )
    {
        //...
    }

    public void ReadXml( XmlReader reader )
    {
        //...
    }
}

[DataContract(Namespace="http://mynamespace.com")]
public class MyDataContract
{
    [DataMember(IsRequired=true)]
    public ICollection<CustomPartOfAContract> CustomParts { get; set; }

}

Now, in the WriteXml method I can tell the XmlWriter what namespace to use for each element I write. However I can't figure out how to specify the namespace for CustomPartOfAContract .

Outputting the XML to file, the namespace for the CustomParts property in MyDataContract is being generated from the source code namespace.

Anyone any idea how I can specify the namespace to use when serializing this?

Answer 1

Ok, I solved this by adding a custom collection class which inherits from Collection and applying the [CollectionDataContract] attribute with the correct namespace:

[CollectionDataContract( Namespace="http://mynamespace.com" )]
public class MyCustomPartsCollection : Collection<CustomPartOfAContract>
{
    public MyCustomPartsCollection()
    {
        // We need a default constructor or the serializer complains.
    }
}

And then using that in my data contract:

[DataContract(Namespace="http://mynamespace.com")]
public class MyDataContract
{
    [DataMember(IsRequired=true)]
    public MyCustomPartsCollection CustomParts { get; set; }

}

This seems to apply the correct namespace to the collection class rather than taking the namespace from the source code.