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I just realized something crazy, which I assumed to be completely impossible : when deserializing an object, the DataContractSerializer doesn't call the constructor ! Take this class, for instance : [DataContract] public class Book { public Book() { // breakpoint here } [DataMember(Order = 0)] public string Title { get; set; } [DataMember(Order = 1)] public string Author { get; set; } [DataMember(Order = 2)] public string Summary { get; set; } } When I deserialize an object of that class, the breakpoint is not hit. I have absolutely no idea how it is possible, since it is the only constructor for this object ! I assumed that perhaps an additional constructor was generated by the compiler because of the DataContract attribute, but I couldn't find it through reflection... So, what I'd like to know is this : how could an instance of my class be created without the constructor being called ?? NOTE: I know that I can use the OnDeserializing attribute to initialize my object when deserialization begins, this is not the subject of my question.

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