difference between adding service reference and proxy class in WCF

Question

I am new to WCF and wondering if there any difference between Proxy class and adding a service reference in client application?

Thanks

Answer 1

is not any difference in the level of use, they are two proxies.

Service reference : the advantage that gives you is, when you want to upgrade the service you can do directly from VS ("Update Service Reference), otherwise you'll have to do it manually.

you can find all infos in http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb628652.aspx

Answer 2

Adding service reference or generating proxy classes through svcutil.exe are basically the same. The first one actually calls svcutil like API to generated proxy classes in the References folder.

Using svcutil.exe you will get more fine grained control, which is good for big projects and long term maintenance, because command line options give you more flexibility than GUI of adding service reference.

And if you want to automate the generation of proxy classes and you develop both service and client, you may refer to this link at is there a way to automatically update proxy object when updating service on WCF?