Programming ASP.NET, 3rd Edition

WebService Attribute

The WebService attribute (not to be confused with the WebMethod attribute or the WebService directive) allows you to add additional information to a web service. The WebService attribute is optional, though VS2005 inserts a default WebService attribute.

Here is the syntax for a WebService attribute:

    [WebService(PropertyName=value)]

PropertyName is a valid property accepted by the WebService attribute (these are described shortly), and value is the value to be assigned to that property.

If there are multiple WebService properties, separate each property/value pair with a comma within a single set of parentheses as in this example:

    [WebService (Description="A stock ticker using C#.",
             Name="StockTicker",
             Namespace="www.LibertyAssociates.com")]

There are three possible properties for a WebService attribute, described in the next three sections.

Description Property

The WebService attribute’s Description property assigns a descriptive message to the web service. As with the WebMethod attribute’s Description property, the WebService description will be displayed in the web service help page when the page is tested in a browser and will be made available in the SOAP message to any potential consumers of the web service.

Name Property

The name of a web service is displayed at the top of a web service help page when the page is tested in a browser and is made available to any potential consumers.

By default, the name of a web service is the name of the class implementing the ...