How to define string arrays in Data Contract?

Question

I have a string array in datacontract as below

[DataMember(Name = "photos", IsRequired = true, Order = 3)] 
public string[] photos { get; set; }

In WCF REST Service call I am passing below xml input for this string array

<photos>
 <string>http://localhost:13169/MainPortal/ContentLibrary/21/58/1227132014-bmw-x1_100426158_m.jpg</string>
 <string>http://localhost:13169/MainPortal/ContentLibrary/21/58/122713bmw2.jpg</string>
 <string>http://localhost:13169/MainPortal/ContentLibrary/21/58/122713bmw3.jpg</string>
 <string>http://localhost:13169/MainPortal/ContentLibrary/21/58/122713BMW_Hamann_Laguna_Seca.jpg</string><string>http://localhost:13169/MainPortal/ContentLibrary/21/58/1227132014-BMW-X1-SUV-sDrive-28i-4dr-4x2-Sports-Activity-Vehicle-Exterior-2.png</string>
</photos>

My client code able to make WebService call with passing xml in HttpWebRequest without any issues, from the service I could see all other data coming in except this string array. Am I missing something in DataContract to serialize arrays. Please help

Tried with CollectionDataContract as below still no luck

[CollectionDataContract(Name = "photos")]
public class Photos : Collection<string>

Also added KnownTypes which is however not required for ordinal types

[KnownType(typeof(string[]))]
public class PublishPhotos
{

Here is complete data contract class

[DataContract(Namespace = "http://myurl.com/Publisher")]
[KnownType(typeof(string[]))]
public class PublishPhotos
{
    [DataMember(Name = "publicationId", IsRequired = true, Order = 0)]
    public int publicationId { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name = "issueId", IsRequired = true, Order = 1)]
    public string issueId { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name = "contentId", IsRequired = true, Order = 2)]
    public string contentId { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name = "photos", IsRequired = true, Order = 3)]
    public Photos photos { get; set; }

}

Answer 1

Finally I figured out what went wrong with XML in HttpWebRequest, the issue is with serializing string array. The easiest way I could have figured out through visiting /PublisherSvc.svc/help for string it requires namespace http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/Arrays as below

<string xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/Arrays">http://localhost:8081/photos/1/1.jpg</string>

Hope this helps someone facing similar issue

Answer 2

I have figured out the answer to this problem. Thanks to @HarlanB

I have changed data contract from DataContract Serialization to XmlSerialization

[SerializableAttribute()]
[XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType = true)]
[XmlRootAttribute(Namespace = "http://myUrl.com/Publisher", IsNullable = false)]
public class PublishPhotos
{
    //[DataMember(Name = "publicationId", IsRequired = true, Order = 0)]
    [XmlElementAttribute(ElementName="publicationId", Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, Order = 0)]
    public int publicationId { get; set; }

    //[DataMember(Name = "issueId", IsRequired = true, Order = 1)]
    [XmlElementAttribute(ElementName = "issueId", Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, Order = 1)]
    public string issueId { get; set; }

    //[DataMember(Name = "contentId", IsRequired = true, Order = 2)]
    [XmlElementAttribute(ElementName = "contentId", Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, Order = 2)]
    public string contentId { get; set; }

    //[DataMember(Name = "photos", IsRequired = true, Order = 3)]
    [XmlElementAttribute(ElementName = "photos", Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, Order = 3)]
    public string[] photos { get; set; }

}

In client code I am using XmlSerializer to write to HttpWebRequest as below

            pubPhotos.publicationId = Convert.ToInt32(publication.Value);
            pubPhotos.issueId = secName;
            pubPhotos.contentId = selectedMediaItem;

            HtmlDocument divDoc = new HtmlDocument();
            divDoc.LoadHtml(widgetScript);
            HtmlNode divNode = divDoc.DocumentNode.FirstChild;
            HtmlNodeCollection imgs = divNode.SelectNodes("//img");
            Collection<string> photos = new Collection<string>();
            foreach (HtmlNode img in imgs)
            {
                photos.Add(img.Attributes["src"].Value);
            }
            pubPhotos.photos = photos.ToArray();
        HttpWebRequest req = null;
            const string url = "http://localhost:40009/PublisherSvc.svc/PublishPhotos";
            req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
            req.Method = "POST";
            req.ContentType = "application/xml; charset=utf-8";
            req.KeepAlive = false;
            req.Timeout = 30000;
            req.Headers.Add("SOAPAction", url);

            XmlSerializer serilizer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(PublishPhotos));
            var sw = new StreamWriter(req.GetRequestStream());
            serilizer.Serialize(sw, pubPhotos);
            sw.Close();

I hope this helps some other people out there that are having similar problems.