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Elastic Docs ›Elasticsearch.Net and NEST: the .NET clients [2.x] ›NEST - High level client ›Serialization
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Modifying the default serializeredit

In Changing serializers, you saw how it is possible to provide your own serializer implementation to NEST. A more common scenario is the desire to change the settings on the default JSON.Net serializer.

There are a couple of ways in which this can be done, depending on what it is you need to change.

Modifying settings using SerializerFactoryedit

The default implementation of ISerializerFactory allows a delegate to be passed that can change the settings for JSON.Net serializers created by the factory

var pool = new SingleNodeConnectionPool(new Uri("http://localhost:9200"));
var connection = new HttpConnection();
var connectionSettings =
    new ConnectionSettings(pool, connection, new SerializerFactory((settings, values) => 
    {
        settings.NullValueHandling = NullValueHandling.Include;
        settings.TypeNameHandling = TypeNameHandling.Objects;
    }));

var client = new ElasticClient(connectionSettings);

delegate will be passed JsonSerializerSettings and IConnectionSettingsValues

Here, the JSON.Net serializer is configured to always serialize null values and include the .NET type name when serializing to a JSON object structure.

Modifying settings using a custom ISerializerFactoryedit

If you need more control than passing a delegate to SerializerFactory provides, you can also implement your own ISerializerFactory and derive an IElasticsearchSerializer from the default JsonNetSerializer.

Here’s an example of doing so that effectively achieves the same configuration as in the previous example. First, the custom factory and serializer are implemented

public class CustomJsonNetSerializerFactory : ISerializerFactory
{
    public IElasticsearchSerializer Create(IConnectionSettingsValues settings)
    {
        return new CustomJsonNetSerializer(settings);
    }
    public IElasticsearchSerializer CreateStateful(IConnectionSettingsValues settings, JsonConverter converter)
    {
        return new CustomJsonNetSerializer(settings, converter);
    }
}

public class CustomJsonNetSerializer : JsonNetSerializer
{
    public CustomJsonNetSerializer(IConnectionSettingsValues settings) : base(settings)
    {
        base.OverwriteDefaultSerializers(ModifyJsonSerializerSettings);
    }
    public CustomJsonNetSerializer(IConnectionSettingsValues settings, JsonConverter statefulConverter) :
        base(settings, statefulConverter)
    {
        base.OverwriteDefaultSerializers(ModifyJsonSerializerSettings);
    }

    private void ModifyJsonSerializerSettings(JsonSerializerSettings settings, IConnectionSettingsValues connectionSettings)
    {
        settings.NullValueHandling = NullValueHandling.Include;
        settings.TypeNameHandling = TypeNameHandling.Objects;
    }
}

Then, create a new instance of the factory to ConnectionSettings

var pool = new SingleNodeConnectionPool(new Uri("http://localhost:9200"));
var connection = new HttpConnection();
var connectionSettings =
    new ConnectionSettings(pool, connection, new CustomJsonNetSerializerFactory());

var client = new ElasticClient(connectionSettings);

Any custom serializer that derives from JsonNetSerializer wishing to change the settings for the JSON.Net serializer, must do so using the OverwriteDefaultSerializers method in the constructor of the derived serializer.

NEST includes many custom changes to the IContractResolver that the JSON.Net serializer uses to resolve serialization contracts for types. Examples of such changes are:

  • Allowing contracts for concrete types to be inherited from interfaces that they implement
  • Special handling of dictionaries to ensure dictionary keys are serialized verbatim
  • Explicitly implemented interface properties are serialized in requests

It’s important therefore that these changes to IContractResolver are not overwritten by a serializer derived from JsonNetSerializer.

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