WCF Data Contract and Reference Entity Data?

Question

Soliciting feedback/options/comments regarding a \"best\" pattern to use for reference data in my services.

What do I mean by reference data?

Let\'s use Northwin

Answer 1

Amazon Product Advertising API Web service is a good example of the same problem that you are experiencing.

They use different DTOs to provide callers with more or less detail depending on their circumstances. For example there is the small response group, the large response group and in the middle medium response group.

Having different DTOs is a good technique if as you say you don't want a chatty interface.