[Mono-devel-list] XmlSerializer, Web Services and Remoting in MS.NET 2.0

[Lluis Sanchez]

Hi!

Here is a summary of changes in my areas of work for MS.NET 2.0. My
overall feeling is that it should not be too difficult to implement the
new features, since there aren't big architectural changes, only small
changes and additions. I've started working on this, so expect new 2.0
bits pretty soon.

XmlSerializer
-------------

* New tool for generating serializers. It generates an assembly that
implements serializers for a set of client web service proxies, thus
avoiding the startup time that MS.NET has when using those proxies
(avoids having to generate and compile those on the fly). There are new
methods in XmlSerializer to support this. Since we already support
serializer generation, whis will be easy to implement.

* The schema importer (used to generate classes from xml schemas) is now
extensible, through the use of SchemaImporterExtension. Extensions can
be added by code or by configuration files. Together with the
IXmlSerializable (now officially supported) it is possible to generate
schemas from types, and types for schemas for custom classes.

* Soap 1.2 encoding: There are some small changes that affect the
encoded format.

This is the same serializer used in MS.NET 1.1, the new serializer comes
with Indigo.

Web Services
------------

* Added support for Soap 1.2.

* New way of doing async calls in client proxies, based on events
instead of the BeginInvoke/EndInvoke pattern.

* Basic Profile conformance checker. The Soap Basic Profile is a subset
of Soap, which simplifies the protocol and makes interoperability
easier. There is a new class that can check if a WSDL conforms the Basic
Profile.

* The WSDL tool has new code generation options, and allows the sharing
of data types between several web services.

Remoting
--------

- There is a new IPC channel, which is based on named pipes on Windows.
We'll need to chose an equivalent technology in Linux.

Lluis.