Why are access modifiers on web service proxy methods important?

Question

I'm creating interface to an external web service with C# client generated from WSDL. And in this client class I have methods with signature like: public ResponseType InvokeMethod(RequestType request). I want to change its access modifier to protected, but then web service responds with "web service method name is not valid" exception. Do You know why is that so? I understand that maintaining method name can be important for some reasons, but why can't I change this access modifier? Shouldn't it be a matter of my code what access I want to give to this method? Thanks for all the answers in advance.

Answer 1

Parts of code You want to make protected try to move to separate class inside project or DLL. In that public method make calls to protected ones. In general interfaces has public access modifiers.