With partial classes, what controls order?

Question

As discussed in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/431203/does-the-order-of-fields-in-c-matter, the order of serializable properties affects, among other things, XmlSerializer output.

But if fields are in 2 files (using partial classes), does anyone know what in fact controls the resulting order? That is, which file's properties comes first?

(Background: I ask this because I've run into a scenario where one of the 2 files is auto-generated from xsd, and the other is manually edited. The test output is different on developer boxes vs. our scripted build box. Presumably this is a side effect of the several differences in the timing and history of the xsd->C# step in the 2 environments. Various ways to fix, but I'd like to understand the compilation process a little better if possible.)

Thanks, Eric

Answer 1

Nothing is guaranteed per C# spec.

Answer 2

I've found that using the 'easy' approach to making an object by marking it [Serializable] is usually only good enough for very simple implementations.

I would recommend that you implement the IXmlSerializable interface which is pretty easy to do and gives you all the control you need.