How to enforce that initialization is done properly once the object has been de-serialized?
So far so good. But as with all serializable objects, they need to have a default (parameterless) constructor. And I want my objects to behave, remember?
Enter another useful attribute. OnDeserialized.
[Serializable]
[DataContract(IsReference = true)]
public abstract class Element {
...
[OnDeserialized]
private void OnDeserialized(StreamingContext context) {
if (this.Children == null) { this.Children = new
ElementList(this); }
//Make sure that any new child added gets a correct reference to
its parent.
if ( this.Children.Element == null) { this.Children.Element =
this; }
//Make sure that all children have correct parental
references.
foreach (Element e in this.Children) { e.Parent = this; }
}
...
}
This will be executed every time my object has been de-serialized, enforcing my constructor logic.
Now, as far as I'm concerned, that's behaving.