C# Serialize to XML - String properties sometimes appear?

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C#

XML

serialization

I think I'm missing something in my C# Serialization understanding.

I am serializing a C# class to XML to transfer across a web service. For simplicity's sake, I have a class with only three properties:

public partial class MyInfo : SerializableObject
{
   private string ssnField;
   private string suffixField;
   private integer suffixIDField;

   public MyInfo()
   {
      this.ssnField = string.Empty;
      this.suffixField = string.Empty;
      this.suffixIDField = 0;
   }

   public string SSN
   {
      get { return this.ssnField; }
      set { this.ssnField = value; }
   }
	
   public string Suffix
   {
      get { return this.suffixField; }
      set { this.suffixField = value; }
   }
   
   public integer SuffixID
   {
      get { return this.suffixIDField; }
      set { this.suffixIDField = value; }
   }
}

And here's the gist of the serializer:

using (XmlTextWriter xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(memoryStream, Encoding.UTF8) { Formatting = Formatting.Indented })
{
   xmlSerializer.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, this);						
   memoryStream = (MemoryStream)xmlTextWriter.BaseStream;				
   xmlText = new UTF8Encoding().GetString(memoryStream.ToArray());
   memoryStream.Dispose();
}

And here's my output: Neither SSN or Suffix get set beyond the string.empty call. SSN shows up in the XML, Suffix does not. Anyone know why?

<SSN />
<SuffixID>0</SuffixID>

I'd prefer to not pass empty fields (like Suffix) but I'd settle to know why one appears, and one does not.

Thanks much.