A Web Service class can contain any number of WebMethods
that are accessible across the HTTP wire. Like the Web Service attribute,
WebMethod can also contain some properties which are described in this section.
CacheDuration
CacheDuration specifies the number of seconds that the
response should be held in the system’s cache. By default, the caching is
disabled. Putting an XML Web Service’s response in the cache increases the Web
service’s performance. We can write the same as specified in Listing 3
Listing 3
[WebMethod(CacheDuration=30)]
BufferResponse
Buffering allows the server to buffer the output from the
response of XML Web Service and transmit it only once the response is
completely buffered. By default, this property is set to true. If we make the
property to false, the response is sent to the client as it is constructed on
the server.
Description
The description property is used to provide a brief
description to the WebMethod and the description becomes part of the service
description (WSDL) document.
EnableSession
EnableSession property enables session state for a
particular WebMethod if we set the property to true. The default setting is false.
MessageName
MessageName property is required to uniquely identify
polymorphic methods within a class. In case of working with overloaded
WebMethods this property is a required one.
TransactionOption
By default, transactions are disabled. If we decide to use
.NET transactions, our WebMethod will be able to participate only as the root
object in a transaction. This means that our WebMethod may call other
transaction-enabled objects, but may not itself be called as part of a
transaction started by another object. This limitation is due to the stateless
nature of the HTTP protocol. As a result, the Required and RequiresNew values
for TransactionOption are equivalent (and both declare a RequiresNew method
that will start a new transaction). Disabled, NotSupported, and Supported are all
disable transactions for the web method despite what their names imply.
