.NET SOAP Common types

Question

Is there a way when creating web services to specify the types to use? Specifically, I want to be able to use the same type on both the client and server to reduce duplicati

Answer 1

If you want to have a type or structure shared between your web service and your client, add a public struct to your web service project like so:

public struct Whatever
{
    public string A;
    public int B;
}

then add a method to your web service that has this struct as its return type:

[WebMethod]
public Whatever GiveMeWhatever()
{
    Whatever what = new Whatever();
    what.A = "A";
    what.B = 42;
    return what;
}

After you update your client's web reference, you'll be able to create structs of type Whatever in your client application like so:

Webreference.Whatever what = new Webreference.Whatever();
what.A = "that works?";
what.B = -1; // FILENOTFOUND

This technique lets you maintain the definition of any structures you need to pass back and forth in one place (the web service project).