From ASPX to WCF

Question

I'm hoping someone can advise me on how to solve my networking scenario. Both the client and server are to be C# / .NET based.

I basically want to invoke some kind of web service from my client in order to retrieve both binary data (e.g. files) and serialised objects and lists of objects (e.g. database query results).

At the moment, I'm using ASPX pages, using the query string to provide parameters and I get back either the binary data, or the binary data of the serialised messages. This affords me a lot of flexbility, and I can choose how to transmit the data, perform simulatanous requests, cancel ongoing requests, etc. Since I can control the serialised format, I can also deserialise lists of objects as they are received which is crucial.

My problem isn't a problem as such, but this feels a little hack-ish and I can't help but wonder if there are better ways to go about it. I'm considering moving on to WCF or perhaps another technology to see if it helps. However, I need to know if it helps with my scenarios above that is;

• Can a WCF method return a list of objects, and can the client receive the items of this list as they arrive as opposed to getting the entire list on completion (i.e. streaming). Does anyone know of any examples of this?

• Am I likely to get any performance benefits from this? I don't know how well ASPX pages are tuned for this, as it surely isn't their primary purpose.

• Are there any other approaches I should consider?

Thanks for your time spent reading this. I hope you can help.

Answer 1

WCF does not natively support streamed collections. (Which are not the same as Streaming Message Transfer)

However, see this blog post.

I recommend that you use ASHX files (Generic Handlers) instead of ASPX pages (Web Forms), as they have far less overhead.