Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET Programmer's Cookbook

Create a One-Way Web Method

Problem

You want a Web method to perform a long task, and you don’t want to force the client to wait while the Web service code executes.

Solution

Create a one-way Web method by applying the SoapDocumentMethod or SoapRpcMethod attribute and setting the OneWay property to True.

Discussion

With one-way Web methods, the client sends a request message, and the server responds immediately to indicate that the method began processing. This behavior has the following consequences:

• The client doesn’t need to wait while the Web method code executes.

• The Web method can’t return any information to the client, either through a return value or a ByRef parameter.

• If the Web method throws an unhandled exception, it won’t be propagated back ...