Exposing data object through a service?

Question

I created a SOAP service that is supposed to return a Category object and a CategoryCollection through a SubSonic query. The problem is that I can return a DataTable of data just fine, however the objects returned from the service are of active record type, internally, and not of my DAL entities.

For example when I consume the service, I see SOAPService.Category, but not SOAPService.CategoryCollection (I should be able to see SOAPService.[all other data entities], and the SOAPService.Category is of active record type, and doesn't contain the actual Category properties.

Both classes defined through my SubSonic DAL generation.

 namespace TrainingWebService.DAL
 {
     /// <summary>
 // Strongly-typed collection for the Category class.
     /// </summary>
     [Serializable]
     public partial class CategoryCollection : ActiveList<Category, CategoryCollection>
     {  
     .
     .   
     .

and

/// <summary>
/// This is an ActiveRecord class which wraps the Categories table.
/// </summary>
[Serializable]
public partial class Category : ActiveRecord<Category>, IActiveRecord
{
.
.
.    

These classes exist in the TrainingWebService solution.

TrainingWebService.ISOAPService.cs:

using VRPCTrainingWebService.DAL;

namespace TrainingWebService { // VRPC Training Web Service - Interface [ServiceContract] public interface ISOAPService {

    [OperationContract]
    string GetDBConnectionStringDetails();

    [OperationContract]
    string ReturnSameString(string someString);


    //
    // Database-related
    //

    [OperationContract]                             // categories
    CategoryCollection GetAllCategories();          // SubSonic object

    [OperationContract]
    DataTable GetAllCategoriesAsDataTable();

    [OperationContract]
    DataTable GetCategoryAsDataTable(int id);

    [OperationContract]                             
    Category GetCategoryByID(int id);               // SubSonic object 

    [OperationContract]   
    // products
    ProductCollection GetAllProducts();

    [OperationContract]
    Product GetProductByID(int id);

    [OperationContract]                             // suppliers
    SupplierCollection GetAllSuppliers();

    [OperationContract]
    Supplier GetSupplierByID(int id);



}

}

In my SOAPService.cs

 public CategoryCollection GetAllCategories()            // get a collection of all categories
    {
        return DataCaller.GetAllCategories();
    }

    public DataTable GetAllCategoriesAsDataTable()
    {
        return DataCaller.GetCategoriesAsDataTable();
    }

    public DataTable GetCategoryAsDataTable(int id)
    {
        return DataCaller.GetCategoryAsDataTable(id);
    }


Here's a snip of the DataCaller code.

       /// <summary>
        /// Get all categories - returns a collection of categories
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static CategoryCollection GetAllCategories()
        {
            categoryCollection =
                DB.Select().From("Categories")
                    .ExecuteAsCollection<CategoryCollection>();

            return categoryCollection;
        }


        public static DataTable GetCategoryAsDataTable(int id)
        {
            try
            {
                dtResults = new Select()
                                .Where(Category.Columns.CategoryID).IsEqualTo(id)
                                .From(Category.Schema)
                                .ExecuteAsCollection<CategoryCollection>().ToDataTable();
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw ex;
            }

            return dtResults;
        }

I think the problem may be in exposing the *.DAL entities through my web service, so they are accessible.

I have this working just fine in another solution I built a while back, but for some reason I can't see what I'm missing here.

Answer 1

Don't forget to decorate your DAL entites with [DataContract], if applicable.

DataContractAttribute Class