known-types – Tarik Billa

When is it appropriate to use the KnownType attribute?

May 11, 2023 by Tarik

[KnownType] is needed to tell it about subtypes. The disadvantage of not using it is that the following won’t work: [DataContract] class Foo {} [DataContract] class Bar : Foo {} with a method on the WCF interface that returns: public Foo GetFoo() { return new Bar(); } Without the attribute, the serializer (especially for mex/proxy-generated … Read more

How do you configure WCF known types programmatically?

April 23, 2023 by Tarik

Add [ServiceKnownType] to your [ServiceContract] interface: [ServiceKnownType(“GetKnownTypes”, typeof(KnownTypesProvider))] then create a class called KnownTypesProvider: internal static class KnownTypesProvider { public static IEnumerable<Type> GetKnownTypes(ICustomAttributeProvider provider) { // collect and pass back the list of known types } } and then you can pass back whatever types you need.