Question

I have a LINQ to SQL class (dbml) representing some tables in a database. I have added a “calculated field” of sorts by extending the partial class of one of the tables (Dwelling) with a new property (DwellingCode); this property takes the values of several database fields in the Dwelling table and generates a string.

So far, everything works fine; I can get this calculated field to display properly in bound controls in web pages etc. The problem is I also have a SOAP web service that returns a Dwelling object. When the Dwelling object gets serialized into XML, the DwellingCode is not included with the rest of the “real” database fields.

What do I need to do to get the DwellingCode property to serialize with the rest of the database fields? Based on some googling, I’ve tried adding [DataMember] and [DataMamberAttribute] to the DwellingCode property and [DataContract] and [Serializable] to the partial class but nothing seems to work.

public partial class Dwelling
{

    public string DwellingCode
    {

        get
        {
            // code to concatenate fields here
        }

    }

}

Answer 1

Your property is readonly, which is why it isn’t being serialized. Standard built-in serialization only serializes read-write properties (as it seems you have found).