title: How Can I Extend A Entity When Using RIA Services With Silverlight?
body: <p>On the server side of my Silverlight solution, I have 2 projects.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Website that serves up the Silverlight page.</li>
  <li>A Entity Framework data access layer.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I have a entity with FirstName and LastName properties on it. I want to add a FullName property that will be available from the Silverlight client side.</p>
  
  <p>I have added the property:</p>
  
  <pre><code>namespace Server.DAL.Model
  {
      public partial class Contact
      {
          public string FullName
          {
              get
              {
                  return string.Format("{0} {1}", this.FirstName, this.LastName);
              }
          }
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When tested from the server side, this new property is present and working correctly. The property is NOT present on the Silverlight client side. I tried adding a metadata class with the <code>Include</code> attribute but since string is a primitive type, I get the following error on compilation:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>The property 'FullName' in entity type 'Contact' cannot be marked with
    the IncludeAttribute because 'String' is not a valid entity type. 
    Entity types cannot be a primitive type or a simple type like string
    or Guid.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>How can I make this property available to the Silverlight client?</p>