C# Serialization in MongoDb - _id on nested type, and some properties with private setters - mongodb

Question

I'm in a position where I need to serialize some complex documents into MongoDb, but I can't change the class definition as I don't have control over the source.
However, we need to ensure that callers can still use Linq, so we need to map the class correclty into MongoDb.
Current there are few issues we're faced with:
The _id_ representation is on a nested class.
There are properties with private setters that need to be serialized/ deserialzied.
The shape of the class looks a little like this:
public class AggregateType : AggregateBase
{
public int IntProperty { get; private set; }
public ComplexObject ComplexObjectProperty { get; private set; }
}
With AggregateBase looking like this:
abstract public class AggregateBase
{
public AggregateDetails Details { get; set; }
}
And finally:
public class AggregateDetails
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
...other properties
}
On the base class AggregateBase, there is a property called Details which contains the Id of the aggregate, which is a Guid. This Id field needs to be mapped to the ObjectId or _id field within a MongoDb document.
I need to be able to serialize the document, forcing the use of the Details.Id as the _id, and have the private setters serialized too.
I've done this with CosmoDb using a custom JsonContractResolver without issue. But the move to MongoDb has proved a little more complex.
It's worth noting that there are many AggregateType classes, all with a different shape. I'd like to find a generic way of serializing them, without having to write lots of specific mappers if possible - much like we do with CosmoDb.
On top of that, we would need this solution to work with the Linq query provider for MongoDb too.

Answer 1

Ive thought a little about this , the only way I can see this working is if you create matching types that will serve as your POCO for inserting into mongodb. Im going to assume you are using the C# Driver for Mongo.
public class AggregateTypeDocument : AggregateBaseDocument
{
public int IntProperty { get; private set; }
public ComplexObject ComplexObjectProperty { get; private set; }
}
abstract public class AggregateBaseDocument
{
public AggregateDetailsDocument Details { get; private set; }
}
public class AggregateDetailsDocument
{
[BsonId]
public Guid Id { get; private set; }
...other properties
}
You will end up replicating the structure but just be appending Document at the end for this example. By no means do you have to conform to this
Now you can mold your types to be more mongo friendly using various attributes.
The next step would be to either in your repository ( or wherever ) to map the types with class definitions you don't have access to to your new mongo friendly ones.
I would suggest AutoMapper for this or plain old instantiation. Now you should be able to safely operate on the collection. See below example for automapper.
var normalAggregateType = new AggregateType();
var client = new MongoClient("yourconnectionstring");
var db = client.GetDatabase("mydatabase");
var collection = db.GetCollection<AggregateTypeDocument>("myaggregatetypes");
var mongoAggregateType = Mapper.Map<AggregateTypeDocument>(normalAggregateType);
collection.InsertOne(mongoAggregateType);