Concerns with WCF Data Services and outdated references

Question

I am looking for information on how well WCF Data Services handle being called when they're referenced by an application with an out dated service reference..

If all new added fields are allowed to be null and we're not breaking any existing links for objects, is there anything else we need to be aware of when hosting a WCF Data Service that is still under development and will often be called to using outdated references (from 3rd parties).

Answer 1

For those who are wondering, not sure how I missed it in all my searches but I found my answer here:

Data Service Versioning (WCF Data Services)

Entity property changes.

Requires a new version:

• Remove existing property or relationship
• Add non-nullable property
• Change existing property

New version not needed:

• Add nullable property

With the additional note:

You can set the IgnoreMissingProperties property to true to have the client ignore any new properties sent by the data service that are not defined on the client. However, when inserts are made, the properties not included by the client in the POST request are set to their default values. For updates, any existing data in a property unknown to the client might be overwritten with default values. In this case, you should send the update as a MERGE request, which is the default. For more information, see Managing the Data Service Context (WCF Data Services).

So provided you only add nullable properties you don't need to be concerned with versioning complications with your WCF Data Service.