WCF - AsyncPattern=true or IsOneWay=true

Question

Hello there,

Few methods in my WCF service are quite time taking - Generating Reports and Sending E-mails.

According to current requirement, it is required so that Client application just submits the request and then do not wait for the whole process to complete. It will allow user to continue doing other operations in client applications instead of waiting for the whole process to finish.

I am in a doubt over which way to go:

AsyncPattern = true OR  
IsOneWay=true 

Please guide.

Answer 1

It can be both.

Generally I see no reason for WCF operation to not be asynchronous, other than developer being lazy.

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You should not compare them, because they are not comparable.

In short, AsyncPattern=True performs asynchronous invocation, regardless of whether you're returning a value or not.

OneWay works only with void methods, and puts a lock on your thread waiting for the receiver to ack it received the message.