How can I dynamically switch web service addresses in .NET without a recompile?

Question

I have code that references a web service, and I\'d like the address of that web service to be dynamic (read from a database, config file, etc.) so that it is easily changed

Answer 1

Definitely using the Url property is the way to go. Whether to set it in the app.config, the database, or a third location sort of depends on your configuration needs. Sometimes you don't want the app to restart when you change the web service location. You might not have a load balancer scaling the backend. You might be hot-patching a web service bug. Your implementation might have security configuration issues as well. Whether it's production db usernames and passwords or even the ws security auth info. The proper separation of duties can get you into some more involved configuration setups.

If you add a wrapper class around the proxy generated classes, you can set the Url property in some unified fashion every time you create the wrapper class to call a web method.