Different proxy class when adding WCF service as web reference and service reference

Question

There is a web service written with WCF that I'm adding as reference. Proxy class generator works flawlessly when I add it to as service reference but it generates a slightly different class when I add it as web reference using service.svc?WSDL. Here's are the differences:

//service reference
public partial class TestServicesClient : ... // correct class name
{
    public int TestMethod(string serviceID, int dealID) // correct method signature
    { ... }
}

//web reference
public partial class TestServices: ... //different class name
{
    public void TestMethod(string serviceID, int dealID, bool dealIDSpecified, out int TestMethodResult, out bool TestMethodResultSpecified) // different method signature
    { ... }
}

I tried using wsdl.exe for generating web reference class, didn't help.

What is wrong here?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

Nothing is wrong here. Service Reference is the "new" way to use a WCF Service, it removes overhead such as the "Specified"-parameter, "Result"-parameter and "Result Specificed"-parameter.

You can still use other properties/methods to check if a parameter is specified or if there is a result. But before WCF, it changed the method signature.

You use a Service Reference and a Web Reference a bit different and that's just the way it is.

Here's some additional reading:

And to quote from a reply to "What is the difference between WCF service and web service"

WCF "web services" are part of a much broader spectrum of remote communication enabled through WCF. You will get a much higher degree of flexibility and portability doing things in WCF than through traditional ASMX because WCF is designed, from the ground up, to summarize all of the different distributed programming infrastructures offered by MS. An endpoint in WCF can be communicated with just as easily over SOAP/XML as it can over TCP/binary and to change this medium is simply a configuration file mod. In theory this reduces the amount of new code needed when porting or changing business needs, targets, etc.

ASMX is older than WCF, and anything ASMX can do so can WCF (and more). Basically you can see WCF as trying to logically group together all the different ways of getting two apps to communicate in the world of MS; ASMX was just one of these many ways and so is now grouped under the WCF umbrella of capabilities.

Thank you. Additional read: http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2007/Dec/13/Generated-Date-Types-in-WCF-and-unexpected-dateSpecified-fields — dstr, Jun 01 '11 at 07:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 17 '15 at 04:55

There are few difference between the service reference and web reference. WCF serializes using datacontract serializer. So add XmlSerializeFormat attribute to the serivcecontract and then add web reference. Your extra parameters will be removed. But then its like using wcf like web service only. One more retriction is that you need to use web bindings only like http.

Different proxy class when adding WCF service as web reference and service reference

2 Answers2