Question

2 small parts to this question which hopefully will clear up some ambiguity for me.

Firstly, which is better for calling a WCF service?

using (var myService = new ServiceClient("httpBinding")){
     try{         
          var customerDetails = GetCustomerDetails();
          var results = myService.GetCustomerPurchases(customerDetails);
     }catch(Exception e){
          ......
     }
}

or

var myService = new ServiceClient("httpBinding");
try{
     var customerDetails = GetCustomerDetails();
     var results = myService.GetCustomerPurchases(customerDetails);
}catch(Exception e){
     .......
}

What I’m wondering is, should I always be wrapping my service call in a using block? Does IDisposable.Dispose() get called if the service throws an exception?

Answer 1

Have a look at this question.

Also you can create a couple of classes like

public class ClientService<TProxy>
{
    private static ChannelFactory<TProxy> channelFactory = new ChannelFactory<TProxy>("*");

    public static void SendData(Action<TProxy> codeBlock)
    {
        var proxy = (IClientChannel) channelFactory.CreateChannel();
        bool success = false;

        try
        {
            codeBlock((TProxy)proxy);
            proxy.Close();
            success = true;
        }
        finally
        {
            if (!success)
            {
                proxy.Abort();
            }
        }
    }

    public static TResult GetData<TResult>(Func<TProxy, TResult> codeBlock)
    {
        var proxy = (IClientChannel) channelFactory.CreateChannel();
        bool success = false;

        TResult result;
        try
        {
            result = codeBlock((TProxy)proxy);
            proxy.Close();
            success = true;
        }
        finally
        {
            if (!success)
            {
                proxy.Abort();
            }
        }

        return result;
    }
}

public class SomeAnotherService<TProxy>
{
    public static bool SendData(Action<TProxy> codeBlock)
    {
        try
        {
            ClientService<TProxy>.SendData(codeBlock);
            return true;
        }
        catch(Exception ex)
        {
            //...
        }
        return false;
    }

    public static TResult GetData<TResult>(Func<TProxy, TResult> codeBlock)
    {
        TResult result = default(TResult);
        try
        {
            result = ClientService<TProxy>.GetData(codeBlock);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            //...
        }

        return result;
    }
}

Sometimes it’s convenient. Here is an example of calling some service method.

var someObj = SomeAnotherService<IMyService>.GetData(x => x.SomeMethod());