How can I prevent a datamember from being serialized

Question

I only want only to de-serializing a certain data member, without serializing it.

I understand I can set EmitDefaultValue =false, and set the value to null.

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Answer 1

Which serializer?If this is XmlSerializer then either:

public int Foo {get;set;}
[XmlIgnore]
public bool FooSpecified {
    get { return false; } // never serialize
    set { }
}

or

public int Foo {get;set;}
public bool ShouldSerializeFoo() { return false; }

will do this. A quick test shows that this doesn't work for DataContractSerializer, though. protobuf-net also supports both of these, for info.