propertySpecified in XML Serialization at 3:54 PM

What will be saved when an object of SomeDate class is serialized?

public class SomeDate
{
    private short yearField;
    private bool yearFieldSpecified;

    public short Year
    {
        get
        {
            return this.yearField;
        }
        set
        {
            this.yearField = value;
        }
    }

    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIgnoreAttribute()]
    public bool YearSpecified
    {
        get
        {
            return this.yearFieldSpecified;
        }
        set
        {
            this.yearFieldSpecified = value;
        }
    }
}

The serialization code is:

private static void InitializeDateFile()
{
    SomeDate oDate = new SomeDate();
    oDate.Year = 1910;
    oDate.YearSpecified = true;

    XmlSerializer xmlSer = 
           new XmlSerializer(typeof(SomeDate));
    XmlTextWriter writer = 
           new XmlTextWriter(@"SomeDate.xml", 
                   Encoding.Default);
    writer.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
    xmlSer.Serialize(writer, oDate);
    writer.Close();
}

With oDate.YearSpecified = true;, the output is:

<SomeDate xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Year>1910</Year>
</SomeDate>

But without oDate.YearSpecified = true;, the output becomes:

<SomeDate xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" />

Where is Year element?

Here I found the reason:

The XML Schema Definition Tool (Xsd.exe) occasionally generates the XmlIgnoreAttribute when creating classes from a schema file (.xsd). This behavior occurs because value types cannot be set to a null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic), but all XML data types can be. Therefore, the tool creates two fields when it encounters an XML type that maps to a value type: one to hold the value, and another, special field that takes the form of fieldnameSpecified, where the fieldname is replaced by the name of the field or property. Notice, however, that this special field is generated only when the schema specifies that the element need not occur (minOccurs = "0") and that the element has no default value. The XmlSerializer sets and checks this special field to determine whether a value has been set for the field or property. Because the special field must not be serialized, the tool applies the XmlIgnoreAttribute to it.