Question

I have few different applications among which I’d like to share a C# enum. I can’t quite figure out how to share an enum declaration between a regular application and a WCF service.

Here’s the situation. I have 2 lightweight C# destop apps and a WCF webservice that all need to share enum values.

Client 1 has

 Method1( MyEnum e, string sUserId ); 

Client 2 has

Method2( MyEnum e, string sUserId ); 

Webservice has

ServiceMethod1( MyEnum e, string sUserId, string sSomeData); 

My initial though was to create a library called Common.dll to encapsulate the enum and then just reference that library in all of the projects where the enum is needed. However, WCF makes things difficult because you need to markup the enum for it to be an integral part of the service. Like this:

[ServiceContract] [ServiceKnownType(typeof(MyEnum))] public interface IMyService {     [OperationContract]     ServiceMethod1( MyEnum e, string sUserId, string sSomeData); }  [DataContract] public enum MyEnum{ [EnumMember] red, [EnumMember] green, [EnumMember] blue };   

So …. Is there a way to share an enum among a WCF service and other applictions?

Answer 1

Using the Common library should be fine. Enumerations are serializable and the DataContract attributes are not needed.

See: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms731923.aspx

Enumeration types. Enumerations, including flag enumerations, are serializable. Optionally, enumeration types can be marked with the DataContractAttribute attribute, in which case every member that participates in serialization must be marked with the EnumMemberAttribute attribute

EDIT: Even so, there should be no issue with having the enum marked as a DataContract and having client libraries using it.