Remove xml namespaces from WCF restful response

Question

I am using WCF to return a plain old XML (POX) document to the caller. I am using the XML Serializer formatter to turn the objects into XML.

In the returned document I have some extraneous xml namespace references (that weren't there in the ASMX version) for the XML Schema and instance. I have seen various arguments on the web that these shouldn't be removed which I don't buy into for returning a plain XML document.

What is the simplest way of removing these xmlns references from a returned XML document in WCF?

The signature looks like:

public ResponseInfo Process(string input) {
}

Answer 1

You can remove the XML namespace by setting the Namespace parameter of the DataContract attribute to an empty string, like so:

[DataContract(Namespace = "")]
public class ResponseInfo
{
    // ...
}

I hope this helps...

Answer 2

I had the same problem. Adding BodyStyle:=WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare to WebInvoke worked for me. Response is no longer wrapped in a metadata.