Programming Visual Basic 2005

WebMethod Properties

Each web method is preceded by the WebMethod attribute. You are free to add properties to this attribute. The following sections describe the valid WebMethod properties.

The BufferResponse Property

By default, ASP.NET buffers the entire response to a request before sending it from the server to the client. Under most circumstances, this is the optimal behavior. However, if the response is very lengthy, you might want to disable this buffering by setting the WebMethod attribute's BufferResponse property to False. If set to False, the response will be returned to the client in 16 KB chunks.

    <WebMethod(BufferResponse:=False)>

The CacheDuration Property

Web services, like web pages, can cache the results returned to clients. If a client makes a request that is identical to a request made recently by another client, then the server will return the response stored in the cache. This can result in a huge performance gain, especially if servicing the request is an expensive operation (such as querying a database or performing a lengthy computation).

Warning

For the cached results to be used, the new request must be identical to the previous request. If the web method has parameters, the parameter values must also be identical. For example, if the GetPrice web method of the StockTicker web service is called with a value of msft passed in as the stock symbol, that result will be cached separately from a request for dell.

The CacheDuration property defines how long the response ...