WCF DataContract ToString function

Question

Can you override the ToString function in a WCF DataContrat? Right now I have:

[DataContract]
public class Keyword
{
    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        return Name;
    }
}

But it doesn't seem to work. Anyway to get this working?

Answer 1

Where do you want to be able to invoke ToString()? Methods are not part of the DataContract so they won't be available when you create the proxy for the client.

Of course, nothing is stopping you from coding that method in the client's proxy yourself.

Answer 2

Remember too that if you own both the server and the client, that often you can use a shared library for data contracts rather than generating a client proxy. If you do that, then you can have the same method on both the server and client as they're exactly the same type.