WCF naming conventions for extending methods.

Question

I have a method exposed as an OperationContract for my WCF service that i would like to rework. The previous programmer had written something like:

public ReportResultObject GetReport(string stringContainingParameters)

I would like to have a method that is something more like this:

public ReportResultObject GetReport(int[] someIds, bool includeAdditionalInformation)

Since WCF doesnt allow for overloaded methods without specifying the Name attribute in the OperationContract, and I dont want to break current clients, is there a naming convention for situations like this? Something like GetReportV2 or GetReportHeyUseMeInstead ?

Answer 1

I'd go with something that made sense, making it more likely that people would recognise it and use it appropriately.

public ReportResultObject GetReportWithAdditionalInformation(...)

might be a bit too much though!

I'd certainly avoid GetReportV2 or similar.

Answer 2

If your WCF service is RESTful, does it matter if bool includeAdditionalInformation is passed or not?

Answer 3

By doing the same thing again you're just setting yourself up for the same "mess" when you need to add another parameter. I would strongly suggest that you look at having a single parameter which is a data contract;

public ReportResultObject GetReportTheSuperDooperWay(
    GetReportParameters parameters)

What does this give you? Well

[DataContract]
public class GetReportParameters
{
 [DataMember(IsRequired=false)]
 public string parameters;

 [DataMember(IsRequired=false)]
 public int[] someIds;

 [DataMember(IsRequired=false)]
 bool includeAdditionalInformation
}

So because each field is optional you can add new fields without breaking existing clients. This is a rather simplistic example, as you'll also want to implement IExtensibleDataObject too and you should be versioning via namespaces at both the service and data contract levels.

Answer 4

Create a new operationalcontract and add a namespace to it. Then have your clients using the new contract call it by the way of the namespace. This will simulate versioning.