Catching a custom Exception thrown by a WebMethod on ASP.NET WebService

Question

I have a classical asp.net web service (asmx) and a web method in it. I need to throw a custom exception for some case in my web method, and I need to catch that specific custom exception where I call the web service method.

[WebService(Namespace = "http://tempuri.org/")]
[WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)]
public class WebService : System.Web.Services.WebService
{
    [WebMethod]
    public HelloWorldOutput HelloWorld(HelloWorldInput input)
    {
        try
        {
            // My Code
            return new HelloWorldOutput();
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw new HelloWorldException("Hello World Exception", ex);
        }
    }
}

Input, output and exception classes as a sample:

public class HelloWorldInput { }
public class HelloWorldOutput { }    

[Serializable]
public class HelloWorldException : Exception
{
    public HelloWorldException() { }
    public HelloWorldException(string message) : base(message) { }
    public HelloWorldException(string message, Exception inner) 
        : base(message, inner) { }
    protected HelloWorldException(
      System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationInfo info,
      System.Runtime.Serialization.StreamingContext context)
        : base(info, context) { }
}

In the client side, I need:

public static void Main()
{
    WebService service = new WebService();
    try
    {
        service.HelloWorld(new HelloWorldInput());
    }
    catch (HelloWorldException ex)
    {
        // Do sth with HelloWorldException
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        // Do sth with Exception
    }
}

However, I cannot do that because when I add the web service reference on the client, I have service class, input and output classes, but I do not have custom exception class.

Also another problem is that, I have also problems with serializing Exception class (because of Exception.Data property implements IDictionary interface)

Is there a way to do this in my way, or am I in a completely wrong way, or is there something I miss about fundamentals of web services?

Thanks.

Answer 1

This may be of help. Looks like you'll get a SoapException, but you can inspect the details to determine if its your class or not.

Side note, to have access to "HelloWorldException", you can pull it out into a seperate assembly and deploy that on the client...