Expose a object via Ria Services that implements an interface

Question

Hi,

A question about using interfaces on presentationModels with RIA services.

It is possible to expose a object via Ria Services that implements an interface?

The interface:

public interface TestInterface
{
    public int ID {get;set;}
}

We have a presentationModel :

public class TestPresentationModel : TestInterface
{
   [Key]
   public int ID {get;set;}
}

I now get a compilation error: The entity 'TestInterface' in DomainService 'SomeDomainService' does not have a key defined. Entities exposed by DomainService operations must have at least one public property marked with the KeyAttribute.

I tried to add a [Key] attribute, but then I get following error: The derived entity type 'TestPresentationModel' must be declared in a KnownTypeAttribute on the root entity 'TestInterface'.

I tried to add the [KnownTypeAttribute] attribute, but then I get following compilation error: Attribute 'KnownType' is not valid on this declaration type. It is only valid on 'class, struct' declarations.

It seems that Ria services tries to treat the interface as an entity? How can we overcome this problem?

Regards,

Stephane

Answer 1

One possibility is to have your client side entities implement this interface. This is what I have done. Add a file to your Silverlight app that is in the same namespace as your entities, then just extend the entities (they are all defined in partial classes):

namespace My.Model.Namespace
{
    public partial class TestPresentationModel : TestInterface
    {
        ...
    }
}

Then only your client side entities have this interface, so that may not be what you are shooting for, but it has worked well for me.