Webservice Return Generic Result Type or Purposed Result Type
- by hanzolo
I'm building a webservice which returns JSON / XML / SOAP at the moment.. and I'm not entirely sure which approach for returning results is best.
Which would be a better return value?
A generic "transfer" type structure, which carries Generic properties or a purposed type with distinct properties:
class GenericTransferObject{
public string returnVal;
public string returnType;
}
VS
class PurposedTransferObject_1{
public string Property1;
}
//and then building additional "types" for additional values
class PurposedTransferObject_2 {
public string PropertyA;
public string PropertyB;
}
Now, this would be the serialized and returned from a web service call via some client technology, JQuery in this example. SO if I called:
/GetDaysInWeek/
I would either get back:
{"returnType": "DaysInWeek",
"returnVal": "365"
}
OR
{"DaysInWeek": "365"}
And then it would go from there.
On the one hand there's flexibilty with the 1st example. I can add "returnTypes" without needing to adjust the client other than referencing an additional "index"..
but if I had to add a property, now i'm changing a structure definition..
Is there an obvious choice in this situation?
