Question

I am passing a Dataset through WCF and/or serializing it in a session manager.
Data disappears from custom columns after deserializing the object. I can verify the data is there before the object is serialized. The custom object is used for implementing alpha numeric sorting and it uses the [Serializable] attribute. The dataset is not strongly typed.

Solution to follow…

Answer 1

Custom datatypes can be serialized in a dataset but they require the IXmlSerializable interface be implemented.

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Schema;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

  [Serializable]
  public class AlphaNumericSort : IComparable, IXmlSerializable
  {
...
    // Xml Serialization Infrastructure 
    public void WriteXml (XmlWriter writer)
    {
        writer.WriteString(_Value);
    }

    public void ReadXml (XmlReader reader)
    {
        _Value = reader.ReadString();
    }

    public XmlSchema GetSchema()
    {
        return(null);
    }