Maintaining State with Conversations

Some web services need to communicate with a client multiple times in connection with a single task. Conversations ensure that the communications are kept straight amid the many requests that make up the communication. When a particular task requires conversations with multiple parties, especially in an asynchronous manner, conversations provide a way to store and remember intermediate results until the task has been completed.

# Topics Included in This Section

Overview: Conversations

Provides an introduction to conversations and what you can accomplish with them.

How Do I: Add Support for Conversations?

Provides a step-by-step procedure for setting the property that specifies conversation support.

Life of a Conversation

Describes an example of a web service in a conversation.

Implementing Conversations

Offers details and guidelines related to building a web service that supports conversations.

Managing Conversation Lifetime

Describes how you can write code that controls and responds to aspects of a conversation.

Supporting Serialization

Provides an introduction to serialization and describes why it is important for conversations.

## Samples

The following sample web services use conversations:

- Conversation.jws

- HelloWorldAsync.jws

- LuckyNumberDBClient.jws

- QuoteClient.jws

- Investigate.jws

For more information about samples, see Samples.

Related Topics

Using Asynchrony to Enable Long-Running Operations