Question

[DataContract]
    public class AssetData
    {
        [DataMember]
        public string Name { get; set; }
        [DataMember]
        public List<AssetData> ChildAssets { get; set; }
        [DataMember]
        public int Priority { get; set; }
        [DataMember]
        public AssetData ParentNode { get; set; }
    }

[ServiceKnownType(typeof(Dictionary<string, AssetData>))]
    public interface IRtxEquipmentConfiguration
    {
        [OperationContract] 
        object GetData(string sKey, string sRequest);
    }

For the above OperationContract "GetData" the server is returning a Dictionary of AssetData.
I have marked AssetData as a DataContract and all its fields as DataMembers.
At the client side, I was getting wcf error “The socket connection has been disposed.\r\nObject name: ‘System.ServiceModel.Channels.SocketConnection’.”. I suspected this error is because of the field ChildAssets.
When I disable this field alone (By removing DataMember tag), then at the client side, I was able to get all the Dictionary elements and with in each element all the fields except ChildAssets.
I am able to see remaining fields Name, ParentNode and Priority.

Any clue why WCF fails to serialize a List with in a Dictionary element?

Answer 1

I have fixed the issue by adding IsReference = true to my DataContract class AssetData. The object graph has references to other instances of AssetData class. ChildAssets members are just references to other instances of AssetData.