CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#asp.netxmldatacontractserializerasp.net-web-api
The Light
The Light

Reputation: 27011

How to configure WebAPI and DataContractSerializer so that it doesn't care about the Ordering of the elements?

I'm using DataContractDeserializer for my WebAPI application.

I have a PostProduct action which accepts a Product object.

public void PostProduct([FromBody] Product product)
{

}

 [DataContract(Namespace = "")]
    public class Product
    {
        [DataMember(EmitDefaultValue = false)]
        public int Id { get; set; }

        [DataMember(EmitDefaultValue = false)]
        public string Name { get; set; }
    }

By default apparently the xml data must be sent in alphabetical ordering otherwise the Web API engine can't deserialize those properties and leave them as null.

for example, using Fiddler, I'd have to send {0} and {1} is not acceptable:

{0}: works fine
<Product  xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<Id>1</Id>
<Name>name 1</Name>
</Product>


{1}: fails!
<Product  xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<Name>name 1</Name>
<Id>1</Id>
</Product>

How to configure WebAPI and DataContractSerializer so that it doesn't care about the Ordering of the properties. It should ideally just try to find a mapping element rather than where the element appears.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2768

Answers (1)

polkduran
polkduran

Reputation: 2551

It seems that you can't.

I mean you can't tell DataContractSerializer not to care about the order. Here is a nice discussion about it : http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/a891928b-d27a-4ef2-83b3-ee407c6b9187/order-of-data-members-in-the-xml-string-influences-deserialization-datacontractserializer

If you receive not ordered data you can try to set a XmlSerializer instead of a DataContractSerializer, XmlSerializer doesn't care about order.

Upvotes: 1

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