I am attempting to create a wcf service that accepts any input (Action="*") and then deserialize the message after determining its type. For the purposes of testing deserialization I am currently hard-coding the type for the test service.

I get no errors from the deserialization process, but only the outer object is populated after deserialization occurs. All inner fields are null. I can process the same request against the original wcf service successfully.

I am deserializing this way, where knownTypes is a type list of expected types:

DataContractSerializer ser = new DataContractSerializer(new createEligibilityRuleSet ().GetType(), knownTypes);
createEligibilityRuleSet newReq = buf.CreateMessage().GetBody<createEligibilityRuleSet>(ser);

Here is the class and sub-classes of the request object. These classes are generated by svcutil using a top down approach from an existing wsdl. I have tried replacing the XmlTypeAttributes with DataContracts and the XmlElements with DataMembers with no difference. It is the instance of CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest on the createEligibilityRuleSet object that is null. I have included the request retrieved from the request at the bottom

/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("svcutil", "3.0.4506.2152")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType = true, Namespace = "http://RulesEngineServicesLibrary/RulesEngineServices")]
public partial class createEligibilityRuleSet
{

private CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest requestField;

/// <remarks/>
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, IsNullable = true, Order = 0)]
public CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest request
{
    get
    {
 return this.requestField;
    }
    set
    {
 this.requestField = value;
    }
}
}

/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("svcutil", "3.0.4506.2152")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(Namespace = "http://RulesEngineServicesLibrary")]
public partial class CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest : RulesEngineServicesSvcRequest
{

private string requestField;

/// <remarks/>
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, Order = 0)]

public string request
{
    get
    {
 return this.requestField;
    }
    set
    {
 this.requestField = value;
    }
}
}

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest))]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(ApplyMemberEligibilitySvcRequest))]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CreateCompletionCriteriaRuleSetSvcRequest))]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CopyRuleSetSvcRequest))]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(DeleteRuleSetByIDSvcRequest))]
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("svcutil", "3.0.4506.2152")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(Namespace = "http://RulesEngineServicesLibrary")]
public partial class RulesEngineServicesSvcRequest : ServiceRequest
{
}

/// <remarks/>
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(RulesEngineServicesSvcRequest))]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest))]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(ApplyMemberEligibilitySvcRequest))]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CreateCompletionCriteriaRuleSetSvcRequest))]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CopyRuleSetSvcRequest))]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(DeleteRuleSetByIDSvcRequest))]
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("svcutil", "3.0.4506.2152")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(Namespace = "http://FELibrary")]
public partial class ServiceRequest
{

private string applicationIdField;

/// <remarks/>
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, Order = 0)]

public string applicationId
{
    get
    {
 return this.applicationIdField;
    }
    set
    {
 this.applicationIdField = value;
    }
}
}

Request from client comes on Message body as below. Retrieved from Message at runtime.

<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:rul="http://RulesEngineServicesLibrary/RulesEngineServices">
<soap:Header/>
   <soap:Body>
      <rul:createEligibilityRuleSet>
         <request>
            <applicationId>test</applicationId>
            <request>Perf Rule Set1</request>
         </request>
      </rul:createEligibilityRuleSet>
   </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>