If your are using DataContract serialization then you can override its default behaviour using the OnDeserialized attribute.
From MSDN: When applied to a method, specifies that the method is called during deserialization of an object in an object graph. The order of deserialization relative to other objects in the graph is non-deterministic.
Here is my sample code:
namespace MySpace
{
public class MyCustomClass
{
public string MyStrData { get; set; }
}
[DataContract]
public class Data
{
[DataMember]
public int mInt;
[DataMember]
public MyCustomClass MyCustonObj;
[OnDeserialized]
void OnDeserialized(StreamingContext c)
{
if (MyCustonObj == null)
{
MyCustonObj = new MyCustomClass();
MyCustonObj.MyStrData = "Overridden in serialization";
}
}
[OnDeserializing]
void OnDeserializing(StreamingContext c)
{
if (MyCustonObj == null)
{
MyCustonObj = new MyCustomClass();
MyCustonObj.MyStrData = "Overridden in deserializing";
}
}
[OnSerialized]
void OnSerialized(StreamingContext c)
{
// if you wan to do somehing when serialized here or just remove them
}
[OnSerializing]
void OnSerializing(StreamingContext c)
{
// if you wan to do somehing during serializing here or just remove them
}
}
}
[ServiceContract]
public interface IService
{
[OperationContract]
Data Method(Data dd);
}
public class Service : IService
{
public Data Method(Data dd)
{
return dd;
}
}
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string Url = "http://localhost:8000/";
Binding binding = new BasicHttpBinding();
ServiceHost host = new ServiceHost(typeof(Service));
host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IService), binding, Url);
host.Open();
ChannelFactory<IService> fac = new ChannelFactory<IService>(binding);
fac.Open();
IService proxy = fac.CreateChannel(new EndpointAddress(Url));
Data d = new Data();
d.mInt = 5;
Console.WriteLine("Data before calling service " + d.mInt);
Console.WriteLine("Data before calling service " + (d.MyCustonObj == null ? "null" : d.MyCustonObj.MyStrData));
d = proxy.Method(d);
fac.Close();
host.Close();
Console.WriteLine("Data after calling service " + d.mInt);
Console.WriteLine("Data after calling service " + d.MyCustonObj.MyStrData);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}