Request/Response pattern in SOA implementation
- by UserControl
In some enterprise-like project (.NET, WCF) i saw that all service contracts accept a single Request parameter and always return Response:
[DataContract]
public class CustomerRequest : RequestBase {
[DataMember]
public long Id { get; set; }
}
[DataContract]
public class CustomerResponse : ResponseBase {
[DataMember]
public CustomerInfo Customer { get; set; }
}
where RequestBase/ResponseBase contain common stuff like ErrorCode, Context, etc. Bodies of both service methods and proxies are wrapped in try/catch, so the only way to check for errors is looking at ResponseBase.ErrorCode (which is enumeration).
I want to know how this technique is called and why it's better compared to passing what's needed as method parameters and using standard WCF context passing/faults mechanisms?
