ASP.NET Web API and [Serializable] class

c# .net asp.net-mvc asp.net-web-api serializable
Malako picture Malako · Nov 7, 2012 · Viewed 8.1k times · Source

I have a class that is marked with [Serializable]. When i return it from the Web API the field names are all funky.

Normally the JSON returned is

[{"OrderId":797 ...

JSON returned when using [Serializable]

[{"<OrderId>k__BackingField":797 ...

I wan't to mark it serializable to use a BinaryFormatter for caching. Is there any other way than to write a custom serializer or to make a twin class that is not serializable and write monkey code to "cast" between the two?

Answer

Youssef Moussaoui picture Youssef Moussaoui · Nov 7, 2012

You just need this one-liner to get Json.NET to ignore the [Serializable] semantics again:

((DefaultContractResolver)config.Formatters.JsonFormatter.SerializerSettings.ContractResolver).IgnoreSerializableAttribute = true;

A better solution for you might be to get rid of [Serializable] altogether, stop using BinaryFormatter, and use a different serializer instead to do whatever caching you want to do, like the Json.NET serializer for example.

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