hide empty variables in ASP.NET webservice XML
===

I've an ASP.NET webservice which has this class

        public class Contact
        {
            public int type;
            public string data;
        }

the problem is that sometimes the "type" variable has no data, so by default it will be considered 0 and will return 0 in the XML as shown:

    <Contact>
    	<type>0</type>
    	<data>Hello</data>
    </Contact>

how can i avoid returning the "type" variable when it's 0 so that i can get the following output:

    <Contact>
    	<data>Hello</data>
    </Contact>

Note: if a changed the type to be a string then the problem is solved, but i have other classes and i have to set the type of their variables. so this solution is not going to work.

any idea?

thanks