WCF chokes on properties with no "set ". Any workaround?

Question

I have some class that I'm passing as a result of a service method, and that class has a get-only property:

[DataContract]
public class ErrorBase
{
  [DataMember]
  public virtual string Message { get { return ""; } }
}

I'm getting an exception on service side:

System.Runtime.Serialization.InvalidDataContractException: 
No set method for property 'Message' in type 'MyNamespace.ErrorBase'.

I have to have this property as only getter, I can't allow users to assign it a value. Any workaround I could use? Or am I missing some additional attribute?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Andrey.

Even if you dont need to update the value, the setter is used by the WCFSerializer to deserialize the object (and re-set the value).

This SO is what you are after: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/172681/wcf-datacontracts

Answer 2

Give Message a public getter but protected setter, so that only subclasses (and the DataContractSerializer, because it cheats :) may modify the value.

Answer 3

Couldn't you just have a "do-nothing" setter??

[DataContract]
public class ErrorBase
{
  [DataMember]
  public virtual string Message 
  {
      get { return ""; } 
      set { }
  }
}

Or does the DataContract serializer barf at that, too??

Answer 4

Properties with DataMember attribute always requires set. You should re write simmilar object on the client application since DataContract members can always be assigned values.