How to receive JSON data in ASMX web service - c#

I'm trying to write an ASMX web service to receive a block of JSON data from elsewhere (meaning I have no control over the format of the data - it's documented and consistent, but outside my control). As a test, I've created a simple webpage that sends that same data via an AJAX request. The data is definitely attached as the payload of my POST request:
Picture of chrome devtools showing payload
But when I try to receive that data in my ASMX webservice, I get an empty string:
[WebMethod]
public string UpdateProjectImage()
{
using (var sr = new System.IO.StreamReader(HttpContext.Current.Request.InputStream))
{
string json = sr.ReadToEnd(); // this comes out as an empty string!
return json;
}
}
Please note that this is being built with VS 2012 and IIS 7.5 running on Win2008R2, and I cannot change the technology stack.
The streamreader technique ought to work, because I copied it from another webservice that's working - but it doesn't work in this case (it just gives me an empty string), and I don't know why. It's probably some weird configuration setting, but I just don't know what setting it might be.

Apparently I have to set sr.BaseStream.Position = 0 before the call to sr.ReadToEnd(). I'm not 100% it's the "right" solution (I've done this elsewhere and I didn't need to set the position, and it just seems weird to have to do that), but it's working now and that's good enough for me.
Special thanks to Jasen for pointing me in the right direction.

Related

New Server Security Causing Issues To API Response

one of my old project/app was working fine for years, very recently client report that app does not working any longer due to API response issue.
it's just a get request to an API with some parameters..
till date (before issues occurs) it returns following response:
,,3,1669179307,0,
but recently it shows following response: (note nothing is changed in the source php/code files since project start)
<html><title>You are being redirected...</title>
<noscript>Javascript is required. Please enable javascript before you are allowed to see this page.</noscript>
<script>var s={},u,c,U,r,i,l=0,a,e=eval,w=String.fromCharCode,sucuri_cloudproxy_js='',S='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';L=S.length;U=0;r='';var A='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/';for(u=0;u<64;u++){s[A.charAt(u)]=u;}for(i=0;i<L;i++){c=s[S.charAt(i)];U=(U<<6)+c;l+=6;while(l>=8){((a=(U>>>(l-=8))&0xff)||(i<(L-2)))&&(r+=w(a));}}e(r);</script></html>
here is curl screenshot:
And here is the postman screenshot:
and when i check the URL in browser it shows the expected result, though when i check the devtool (network tab), it looks like page is loaded two times.. 1st one provide error (HTML/js) response (read marked) 2nd one provide the expected response (green marked), so, it looks like when it's called directly by curl/postman/c#... fails.. but as browser can do redirect it passed.
here is the browser screenshot:
i am sorry, i added several screenshot to give better idea what is happening.
and here is the URL in question:
https://simpleclienttracking.com/membershipmanager/remotelogvisit.php?locID=1&orgID=1&deptID=1&barcode=8346420
now my question, is how can i use the API code/file to get the direct response as i was getting earlier? do i need to pass any header? update/modify server htaccess file or what?
To test the error in deep, i have tried another URL from another hosting provider, in that case i am passing post request to an URL, and this server response slightly different thing, but looks like core is same, redirect!
here is the response from new/another server:
<script>document.cookie = "humans_21909=1"; document.location.reload(true)</script>
so, it's looks like hosting providers has applied some kind of security for direct URL access?
thanks in advance for any upcoming help
best regards

C# Console App SOAP response is null

I've seen some questions very similar to mine, but they seem to be a few years old now, and I'm not sure if the same fixes apply.
Basically I have access to a SOAP service. I've added it as a Service Reference in my C# console app. I can establish a connection, but need a session ID before I can do anything. The Session ID is part of the response, but the response in C# is null. I've used Fiddler, and I can see that I'm successfully making a connection, and the response ID is there, but I can't get it to show in Visual Studio. Obviously the response is XML. Am I missing something? How do I capture that XML response in VS?
Thank you in advance.
Generally, at least in my experience, SOAP services return typed data. It will be defined by the service as string, datatable, etc. You need to determine the datatype and store the output from the SOAP service into that type.
Example:
string
string mystring = soapservice.getmystuff()
datatable
DataTable mydatatable = soapservice.getmystuff()
Then, once you have successfully stored the results in a typed object, manipulate that object to retrieve your data.

Need to create code in asp.net mvc 5 solution to receive and send json strings server to server

I have recently returned to .net programming after a 7 year break.
I need to learn how to write a project within an existing open source asp.net mvc 5 ecommerce solution to receive posted json strings from a remote server running php with cURL, send acknowledgement responses, create my own json strings to post back to the remote server and receive acknowledgement responses. This must all be done with server side code, with no client side component whatsoever.
Serializing and deserializing json is not the issue, its using the correct kind of pages or services to send and receive json on the server without any client component, and using http objects directly. I have no experience or knowledge of creating this kind of project.
This is my question: I have had a look at a couple of tutorials about using .ashx and httpClient and httpContext but found them a little confusing. I would like to find a comprehensive guide about how to use json to communicate server to server with realistic examples. Is there one available?
Sounds like a perfect use case for WebApi. It is made specifically to work with JSON (or XML) requests and should work fine with requests issued by other scripts (not browsers).
There are plenty of tutorials available. Here is the official introduction tutorial.
What I often do to create JSON in C# is make an object/class which I serialize to JSON.
My controller has an function:
public JsonResult FunctionName()
{
var json = new { x1 = 10, y1 = "Hello" };
return Json(json);
}
You can call that function with PHP.

Is there any reason for performing full URL encoding on a POST body

I'm currently working on a C# WinForms application which makes calls to a couple of remote web services. In investigating a bug relating to strings containing ampersands, I came across the following method which 'encodes' POST bodies for the other web service (which doesn't have the ampersand issue, admittedly.)
object o = row.Values[i]; //some object
Type valueType = o.GetType();
if (valueType.Name.Equals("String", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
{
o = o.ToString().Replace("&", "%26");
}
I did a bit of WTF at this, but then thought, is there an actual reason for performing full URL encoding on POST bodies? Surely the only two risk points are ampersands and question-marks?
The question is a bit one-sided. There's only reason to encode POST data is if the other side is expecting it to be encoded. e.g. if the content type of the post data is "x-www-form-urlencoded" then, yes, you need to url encode the data. If the other side doesn't expect it to be urlencoded then don't...
Typically, you don't need to urlencode data going to a web service because you've got flexible end-points. If you've got a web service that is expecting to be called directly from a web page (e.g. through a form post) then urlencoding may be done by the browser directly--in which case the web service needs to accept url-encoded (and thus anything else that wants to communicate with it).

.net Client consuming Axis2 Web Service

I have an .net 2.0 C# client app that has a web service reference to an Axis2 Java Webservice.
The idea is to send some xml data to the webservice, so it can be parsed and inserted into database.
The WS method accepts a single parameter of type 'xsd:anytype'.
Java web service:
public class JWS{
public Response AddData(Object inputXML) {
return Response;
}
}
C# Client:
JWS client = new JWS();
object inputXML = "<xml>some xml data</xml>";
response = client.AddData(inputXML);
There are 2 issues i am seeing when monitored using fiddler.
1) The request has an additional element '<inputXML>' added before the actual xml data.
<inputXML><xml>some xml data</xml></inputXML>
2) The xml is encoded, so '<' is appearing as "<"
I am not sure if this is how SOAP request's are generated but i would like to remove the <inputXML> tag and also, have the xml appear as is without having to replace the special characters.
Is this possible? Is it got something to do with 'Wrapping'/'UnWrapping' Types?
Also, i have used SoapUI to test the java web service and it works well. However, in the request tab, i had to manually remove the <inputXML> tag and submit for it to work correctly. Please help.
TIA
This is expected behaviour under SOAP and the inputXml variable will be decoded back to the original string when passed to your web service method.
However this may indicate a problem with your design, have you considered constructing an object to send to your web service rather than xml data? (As this object will transparently be converted to xml for the web service call anyway).
I found out that the issue is not with encoding but it was interpreted incorrectly on java side when the message was viewed in axis2. So, it is getting decoded properly. Also, the inputxml is now being handled correctly.

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