Prevent WCF from encoding strings in response?

Question

Is it possible to override a setting in WCF to prevent HTML encoding characters in a response string?

I have a simple service that is called by a third party tool via a SOAP call. The response object has a single property consisting of a string which will contain XML. When WCF packages up the response, it becomes:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<HttpPostResponse xmlns="http://ws.lenderprise.com">
  <HttpPostResult>
    &lt;STAT xmlns:xsi=&quot;http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance&quot; &gt;
      &lt;RESPONSE Attr1=&quot;1&quot; 
             Attr2=&quot;ABC&quot; 
      &lt;/RESPONSE&gt;
    &lt;/STAT&gt;
  </HttpPostResult>
</HttpPostResponse>

Is it possible to not have the contained string encoded?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<HttpPostResponse xmlns="http://ws.lenderprise.com">
  <HttpPostResult>
    <STAT xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" >
      <RESPONSE Attr1="1" 
             Attr2="ABC"> 
      </RESPONSE>
    </STAT>
  </HttpPostResult>
</HttpPostResponse>

I understand this still leaves me on the hook for ensuring any embedded characters are handled and that this still implies considerations on the receiving end.

carlosfigueira · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-28 16:07:21Z

2

If you want to return XML instead of a string, then you can use either XElement or XmlElement as your return type. In that case it will not be encoded as a string would.

answered Sep 28, 2012 at 16:07

carlosfigueira

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2 Comments

usman shaheen Over a year ago

Can we prevent HTMLEncoding for response string parameter?

carlosfigueira Over a year ago

Yes, but not easily; you'd need to use a custom message formatter (the component which converts between the CLR object - in this case, a string - and the WCF message). The post at blogs.msdn.com/b/carlosfigueira/archive/2011/05/03/… has more information about it if you want to try that route.

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