Question

I have this dilemma.

I’m developing a web services.
It has to return a list of supported languages.
Languages are stored in an enum.

Is it better to return (from web method) an enum array or covert it to string and return a string array.

Maybe I’d prefer string array so the client doesn’t have to mess with custom object types, and no serialization/deserialization is required. But on the other hand, if I need that enum on the client I’ll have to reimplement it and convert the string array back to enum array.

What do you suggest?

Answer 1

Usually the thumb rule should be Keep It As Simple As Possible . Because i have seen really funny things happen with WSDLs while generating their clients.