Question

I’m just looking for some general advice with this one please. My WCF WebMethod needs to work across applications using different software, e.g. ASP.NET –> Java, for example.

I know that in the event of a method failing, I can utilize FaultException(Of MyError) to generate a SOAP Fault, however, what is generally the best way to send a success message?

Take for example the following interface that defines functionality for saving a user into a database:

<ServiceContract()>
Public Interface IService1

    <OperationContract()>
    Sub SaveUserIntoDataBase(ByVal u As MyAppUser)

End Interface

<DataContract()>
Public Class MyAppUser

    <DataMember()>
    Public Property FirstName() As String

    <DataMember()>
    Public Property Surname() As String

End Class

If I needed to send feedback that the user was saved successfully, how would this be generally done? Is there a ‘success’ equivalent of a FaultException, or is it recommended to just return Boolean or a String?

I suppose a value should always be returned?

Answer 1

There isn’t any equivalent success result to exception if execution of service call doesn’t fail.

One option is to create some customzed types such as enums and return those based upon different results from underlying source.

The return types of every call may be different or customized to user needs. Returning a boolean value is better than some string value in your case. Also you are using a “Sub”, so if its a function then this could be one case.

You can follow some discussion here as well:
Whats the best practice for returning a Boolean and string value