CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#web-servicesexception
Lock
Lock

Reputation: 5522

How to catch a web service exception

How do you catch exceptions from a Web Service that is returning a custom object?

I've seen this post but it doesn't seem to show how to get the exception that was thrown by the service.

I can pull the SOAP Exception, but I want to be able to get the original exception that the web service returned. I've looked at the variables that are set at this time and can't seem to see the exception anywhere, I just see:

"Server was unable to process request. ---> Exception of type 
    'RestoreCommon.ConsignmentNotFoundException' was thrown."

    try
    {
        Consignment cons = WebServiceRequest.Instance.Service
            .getConsignmentDetails(txtConsignmentNumber.Text);
            lblReceiverName.Text = cons.Receiver.Name;
    }
    catch (ConsignmentNotFoundException)
    {
        MessageBox.Show("Consignment could not be found!");
    }

Is this possible?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 10430

Answers (1)

danish
danish

Reputation: 5600

In short, no.

Web services will always throw SOAP fault. In your code,

  1. MessageBox meant to be used in Windows forms and nowhere else.
  2. You can throw this exception and in the client application, you will have to handle a SOAP fault.

Edit: If you do not want to send exceptions across to the client, this what you could do:

class BaseResponse
    {
        public bool HasErrors
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

        public Collection<String> Errors
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
    }

Each WebMethod response must inherit from this class. Now, this is how your WebMethod blocks would look like:

public ConcreteResponse SomeWebMethod()
        {
            ConcreteResponse response = new ConcreteResponse();

            try
            {
                // Processing here
            }
            catch (Exception exception)
            {
                // Log the actual exception details somewhere

                // Replace the exception with user friendly message
                response.HasErrors = true;
                response.Errors = new Collection<string>();

                response.Errors[0] = exception.Message;
            }
            finally
            {
                // Clean ups here
            }

            return response;
        }

This is just an example. You may need to write proper exception handling code rather than simply using generic catch block.

Note: This will take care of exceptions occurring in your application only. Any exceptions occurring during communication between client and service, will still be thrown to the client application.

Upvotes: 1

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