Summary

There is more to the Message type than is apparent at first glance; Message is one of the richer types in WCF. Even though the Message type is not visible in many WCF applications, it is always present, and it is the fundamental unit of communication in WCF. Because of its central position in WCF, it is my opinion that understanding the Message type is critical to understanding WCF as a whole. In this chapter, you’ve seen the various ways to create a Message object; how to serialize, encode, decode, and deserialize Message objects; how to work with header blocks; and much more. For the remainder of this book, as we examine different layers in WCF, it is important to remember that those layers are busy, behind the scenes, performing the work described in this chapter.