with RPC calls, is serialization a necessisity to get the data back to the calling client?

Question

with RPC calls, is serialization a necessisity to get the data back to the calling client?

if not, how is it generally done then?

Answer 1

The most direct way to get the data back to the client is using the return from the RPC. This will involve some kind of serialization, although it might be called something else - e.g. marshalling/unmarshalling depending on the RPC protocol.

There are lots of indirect ways to get data back to the client that might be initiated by an RPC, here are a few examples:

• asynchronous message
• e-mail
• RSS feed
• publish to web page

Or the client could initiate a request with one RPC and poll for an answer with separate RPCs.

All of these methods involve some form of data serialization in the general sense (but not necessarily in the C#/Java sense).