WCF XML and Serialization with List

Question

I have a basic WCF service that takes some xml. Some of the xml is a list like so:

<Root>
    <Products>
        <Product>
            <SKU>1234</SKU>
            <Price>2533</Price>
            <ProductName>Brown Shows</ProductName>
            <Quantity>1</Quantity>
        </Product>
        <Product>
            <SKU>345345</SKU>
            <Price>2345</Price>
            <ProductName>Red Shows</ProductName>
            <Quantity>1</Quantity>
        </Product>
    </Products>
</Root>

In my class that this gets stored into I have:

[DataMember(Name = "Products", Order = 4, IsRequired = false, EmitDefaultValue = false)]
public List<Product> products;

Then in my Product class I have the SKU, Price, ProductName, and Quantity. Other non list items in my class are being set, but it doesnt appear as if the xml is populating my list. Am I missing something?

Heres my Product class

public class Product
{
    [DataMember(Name = "SKU", Order = 0)]
    public string sku;

    // for the request
    [DataMember(Name = "Price", Order = 1, IsRequired = false, EmitDefaultValue = false)]
    public int price;

    [DataMember(Name = "ProductName", Order = 2, IsRequired = false, EmitDefaultValue = false)]
    public string productName;

    [DataMember(Name = "Quantity", Order = 3, IsRequired = false, EmitDefaultValue = false)]
    public int quantity;

    // for the response
    [DataMember(Name = "Available", Order = 1, IsRequired = false, EmitDefaultValue = false)]
    public string available;
}

Answer 1

Does your Product class have a [DataContract] attribute??

Answer 2

If you have specific xml, DataContractSerializer may be a poor choice - it isn't designed to give you control. I suspect you might need [XmlSerializerFormat] on the service if you expect a specific xml format. In this case, some [XmlArray] / [XmlArrayItem] should give that format. Something like (with [XmlSerializerFormat] on the service-contract):

[XmlRoot("Root")]
public class MyRoot
{
    [XmlArray("Products"), XmlArrayItem("Product")]
    public List<Product> Products {get;set;}
}

public class Product 
{
    [XmlElement("SKU")]
    public string Sku {get;set;}
    public int Price {get;set;}
    public string ProductName {get;set;}
    public int Quantity {get;set;}
}