Web Services

Some tips:

• When publishing a Web Service, set it's URI. Namespace uniquely describes the Web Service. Apply WebServiceAttribute to the Web Service class, providing Namespace and Description. Example:

[WebService(Namespace="http://www.mywebservice.net", Description="This Web Service does stuff.")]

• Web Services can be processed asynchronously. The proxy class that invokes the Web Service contains Begin[MyService] and End[MyService] methods. The Begin method accepts a name of a callback function that will be invoked when the processing completes. The End method is used to retrieve the value of the result.

• SOAP allows for returning complex data from a Web Service, while HTTP Get and Post methods limit the response to simple name-and-value pairs of data.

• XML Serialization is used to convert complex data types to XML representation. Only public properties are returned in a serialized object. No methods are transferred. This is flattening.

• DataSet can be returned from a Web Service. Web Services can also consume DataSets.