Serialize Partial DataContract

Question

I have a DataContract that looks like:

    [DataContract(Name = User.Root, Namespace = "")]
  public class RegisterUser
  {
    [DataMember(Name = User.EmailAddress)]
    public string EmailAddress { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = User.UserName)]
    public string UserName { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = User.Password)]
    public string Password { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = User.FirstName)]
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = User.LastName)]
    public string LastName { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = User.PhoneNumber)]
    public string PhoneNumber { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = "RequestMessage")]
    public string RequestMsg { get; set; }
  }

And I would like to get the elements out of it. So instead of <ROOT> <Element1/>...</ROOT>. I would just like to get <Element1/> (for partial xsd validation).

I thought I could use this function:

public static string Serialize<T>(T obj)
{
  DataContractSerializer ser = new DataContractSerializer(obj.GetType());
  String text;
  using (MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
  {
    ser.WriteObject(memoryStream, obj);
    byte[] data = new byte[memoryStream.Length];
    Array.Copy(memoryStream.GetBuffer(), data, data.Length);
    text = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(data);
  }
  return text;
}

and just pass it

string str = Serialize(test.EmailAddress);

That works great but the xml looks like:

"<string xmlns=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/\"&gt;myemail.com&lt;/string&gt;"

I lost the DataMember info. How can I retain that as well?

Answer 1

Use WriteObjectContent instead of WriteObject: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms573853.aspx