WCF DataContract DataMember order?

Question

Is the xml that is created from your DataContract created in alphabetical order. I have a DataContract class defined as:

[DataContract(Name = "User", Namespace = "")] public class User {     [DataMember]     public string FirstName { get; set; }     [DataMember]     public string LastName { get; set; }     [DataMember]     public string Email { get; set; }     [DataMember]     public string Password { get; set; }  } 

When I did the following POST:

<User>    <FirstName>abc</FirstName>    <LastName>123</LastName>    <Email>[email protected]</Email>    <Password>pass</Password> </User> 

When I did a GET after my post and returned the result as JSON, email was null, but if I POST my xml as:

 <User>    <Email>[email protected]</Email>    <FirstName>abc</FirstName>    <LastName>123</LastName>    <Password>pass</Password>  </User> 

Email is no longer null when I do a GET and return it as JSON. Why is it doing this?

Answer 1

decorate it with the Order Parameter in the DataMemberAttribute class:

[DataMember(Order = index)] 

The reflector in the serializer puts it alphabetically. Unless when decorated like this:

[DataMember(Order = 0)] public string FirstName { get; set; } [DataMember(Order = 1)] public string LastName { get; set; } [DataMember(Order = 2)] public string Email { get; set; } [DataMember(Order = 3)] public string Password { get; set; } 

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