与无.Net客户端共享WCF服务中的.Net类型

Question

I develop a webservice in WCF returning a dataset .

When I create my .Net test app to consume the WCF I can receive the dataset and assign it to a datagrid without any problem. Visual Studio does all the job for me.

But when my partner is trying to consume the WCF in c++ he told me he processes the data as a XML and does the parsing as a string.

I guess there should exist a better way he consumes my data.
But because I'm not familiar with c++, don't know how should that work.
Should I create a class for my Dataset row and return a MyClass array instead?

Now, on the other hand if I want receive a Dataset from him?
How will he create the XML?
Or should I receive a XML string instead and do the parsing on my side?

EDIT: Just in case c++ is under Linux.

Answer 1

The DataSet is a .Net data type that won't have a specific analogue in non .Net languages. If the C++ consumer is using .Net, then in theory the DataSet should be deserializable.

For an API, you generally want to use simple custom objects and collection types that can be serialized as an array. For example, if your DataSet has a schema that contains

Column1    int
Column2    string
Column3    bool

and do forth, then you could create a custom class to represent that:

public class YourObjectType 
{
    public int Column1 { get; set; }
    public string Column2 { get; set; }
    public bool Column3 { get; set; }
}

And store your DataSet contents in an appropriate collection object. If sorting is important, then convert to a Queue<YourObjectType> , otherwise List<YourObjectType> is generally the best approach. Both of these types serialize to an array. You can iterate across the rows in the dataset to create one object per row and then place that object in the new collection.

As a further tip: for a performance boost, look into getting rid of the DataSet altogether. If you are pulling from a database, it will be better to get a DataReader instead of a DataSet, and then map the contents of that DataReader directly into the new object type and collection. DataSets are computationally expensive compared to directly reading database data.

Answer 2

Consider exposing a REST endpoint (via WCF or WebAPI) instead of a Web Services/SOAP endpoint. Then your C++ developer can use the C++ REST SDK to build his client.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dn342869.aspx

More info: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/GoingNative/2013/A-Cpp-REST-SDK-OSS-web-services-on-Windows-and-Linux