How to omit Get only properties in servicestack json serializer? - json

Question

I have an object which I am de-serializing using ToJson<>() method from ServiceStack.Text namespace.
How to omit all the GET only propeties during serialization? Is there any attribute like [Ignore] or something that I can decorate my properties with, so that they can be omitted?
Thanks

Answer 1

ServiceStack's Text serializers follows .NET's DataContract serializer behavior, which means you can ignore data members by using the opt-out [IgnoreDataMember] attribute
public class Poco
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
[IgnoreDataMember]
public string IsIgnored { get; set; }
}
An opt-in alternative is to decorate every property you want serialized with [DataMember]. The remaining properties aren't serialized, e.g:
[DataContract]
public class Poco
{
[DataMember]
public int Id { get; set; }
[DataMember]
public string Name { get; set; }
public string IsIgnored { get; set; }
}
Finally there's also a non-intrusive option that doesn't require attributes, e.g:
JsConfig<Poco>.ExcludePropertyNames = new [] { "IsIgnored" };
Dynamically specifying properties that should be serialized
ServiceStack's Serializers also supports dynamically controlling serialization by providing conventionally named ShouldSerialize({PropertyName}) methods to indicate whether a property should be serialized or not, e.g:
public class Poco
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string IsIgnored { get; set; }
public bool? ShouldSerialize(string fieldName)
{
return fieldName == "IsIgnored";
}
}
More examples in ConditionalSerializationTests.cs

Answer 2

For nullable members, you also have the ability to set it to null before serializing.
This is particularly useful if you want to create a single view/api model that is re-used for several API calls. The service can touch it up before setting it on the response object.
Example:
public SignInPostResponse Post(SignInPost request)
{
UserAuthentication auth = _userService.SignIn(request.Domain, true, request.Username, request.Password);
// Map domain model ojbect to API model object. These classes are used with several API calls.
var webAuth = Map<WebUserAuthentication>(auth);
// Exmaple: Clear a property that I don't want to return for this API call... for whatever reason.
webAuth.AuthenticationType = null;
var response = new SignInPostResponse { Results = webAuth };
return response;
}
I do wish there was a way to dynamically control the serialization of all members (including non-nullable) on a per endpoint fashion.