Please forgive me for this basic and a little theoretical question as I dont know much about web services.
I m not refering WCF service, I am reffering simple service in .net / C#. I want to know how to know is it soap or rest service ?
How we can change this type from Soap to Rest and vice versa ?
Thanks
XML Web Services (aka classic/legacy ASMX web services) should not be used for active development. If you must, there is a nice walkthrough on MSDN for adding Web references in more recent versions of Visual Studio (> 2005).
On the other hand, if your web service is truly Restful then you won't be able to create the equivalent of a service reference to it. You'll need to either use the HttpWebRequest, WebClient, or the new HttpClient from .NET 4.5 (also available from the Rest starter kit which is depreciated as well).
As an alternative if you are looking to implement a client that is able to handle both situations, I would recommend HttpWebRequest to POST to the SOAP (non-WCF) service. The problem with this method is you'll likely have to wrap the request in the SOAP wrapper yourself. Luckily there are examples of doing so on the net that you can at least use as a starting point.
ASMX services are build upon SOAP. REST is simply a HTTP based, You can access(or call) your business resources the way you access the normal URLs.
For ex in products catalog system, by using asmx you create set of functions to add,update,delete products. like addProduct(),updateProduct, etc..
But in REST, you will be having single point of access, like http:\mysystem\prodcuts. To retrieve,add,update,delete products, you will be using respective HTTP verbs (GET,POST,PUT,DELETE) on the same URL.
so,technically it's not possible to convert asmx(SOAP) service to rest...
Related
Pretty new to WCF
I was browsing through various WCF Terminologies and seems stuck understanding this.
WSDL is used to describe the web service.
Currently, only SOAP based web services seems to have an associated WSDL while REST based services doesn't seem too.
Why?
Is it possible to generate WSDL for REST too?
Or are there any third party programs to do it ?
WADL is equivalent to WSDL for RESTful services
Since Microsoft .NET does not natively support WADL (WADL is WSDL for REST) providing a specific answer to your question is a bit difficult. That said, if you are interested in discovering more about RESTful services and WADL, you may want to consider experimenting with the open-source soapUI web service test utility (http://www.soapui.org/), which provides support for WADL.
The idea of codifying a RESTful API into a never-changing contract is antithetical to REST. Yes, WADL exists, but its purpose is to try and make REST more like SOAP, and with it destroy the primary benefit of REST: its evolvability.
If you feel like you want to use WADL, just use WSDL/SOAP instead.
You can use swagger.json as definitions for REST services.
you can check their github page for more information.
https://github.com/RSuter/NSwag
I'm looking for the difference summary between ASP.NET MVC Web API and WCF Service.
I've seen this question What is the difference between Asp.Net Web API and WCF Service?
and this question WCF vs ASP.NET Web API too, but they don't summarize what I can achieve with the one, what I cannot achieve with the other.
Both can be contacted via url, I first thought that was a difference between them.
So in short:
What can I do with WCF what I cannot do with ASP.NET Web API and visa versa?
this list is by no means exhaustive.
Things WCF does that you cannot do (with ease) using Web API.
Supports SOAP based XML format.
Supports strongly typed data contracts.
Supports a single point of metadata information exchange using WSDL etc.
Supports varied bindings like TCP, Named Pipes, MSMQ, even UDP etc.
Supports varied hosting options like console apps, WAS, IIS, Windows Services.
Supports one way messaging, duplex, message queues out of the box.
Supports multiple authentication schemes like Windows, Forms, Certificates etc.
Things Web API does that you cannot do (with ease) using WCF.
Supports the full features of HTTP. (Uri based access, Http Requests/Response, Http Caching etc.) To do this in WCF you need to additional work to configure it as REST service etc.
Is Lightweight with minimal configuration.
Supports the Routing, Controller/Action MVC paradigm, Model Binding etc.
Basically Web API is an easy way to do RESTful services over Http without knowing much about Web services.
To do the same in WCF, you need to do additional work in terms of httpBindings, UriTemplates, Verbs etc. And that means, understanding WCF first. And then using WCF to implement a RESTFul service over http, which is what Web Api provides out of the box.
This is not a summary per se. Its a sort of practical guide I hope.
For me it ultimately boils down to how simple I want my front-end application code to look like, and also something to do with how to achieve maximum productivity.
Traditional WCF over http is SOAP based messaging protocol. You add a service reference in your project, and Visual Studio takes care of generating the proxy classes. And you work with the instance of the proxy classes. So when you are writing your front-end code, you have intellisense to help you. Don't be fooled. This is just the IDE making life simpler for you. Underneath its pretty complicated. But my productivity is boosted to a degree. I don't have to write proxy classes. Hence, this is what I'd opt for a c# based front-end.
Alternatively, if I had to deal with a Webapi endpoint, I do not have the luxury of any IDE generated proxy classes. Therefore I'd have write code for everything. Typically I use the HttpClient classes to talk to my web api end points. Hypothetically, I could write a proxy classes to talk to web api. But it isn't as simple as in your wcf case where they were auto-generated for you.
On another line or reasoning, if my front-end was JavaScript, then my only best bet is have the web service hosted over web api, rather than wcf. If I were to talk to wcf endpoints from Js, that would be a PITN.
So it ultimately rests on your product plan, design, project schedules, etc software development plan. All the best.
I am trying to create a sort of "bootstrap" web service using a classic .net C# .asmx page and not WCF. (The business requirements for this project are specific and do not want a WCF service).
Basically, I am trying to do this:
Create a new web service (I have no problem doing this)
That service needs to make a SOAP based call to a Sharepoint Web Service
I need to consume that service
I need to add additional pieces of information for my web service to the SOAP result (No problem here either)
The issue I have having is with point #2 and #3. I have found plenty of articles using WCF to consume SOAP based Web Services or using "Linq" to connect to sharepoint etc., but that's not what I'm looking for.
What I am looking for is simply a step by step process of what I need to do to push me in the right direction.
Example:
add a web service reference??
add this line(s) of code to create a new SOAP request??
add this line(s) of code to parse and consume the service??
Thank you very much in advance!!!
Sample code would be greatly appreciated as well!
There's nothing magical about the fact that it's a web service. Just use "Add Service Reference" and then treat it like any other piece of code referencing a web service.
Also, are those who wrote the requirements aware that a WCF service can expose a basicHttpBinding endpoint that looks exactly like an ASMX web service endpoint? It would also have the benefit of all of the features of WCF, in addition to not using what Microsoft considers a "legacy technology".
The SharePoint Developer Center at MSDN would be a good place to refer to for general information, tutorials, etc. Server and Site Architecture: Object Model Overview in the Windows SharePoint Services 3 SDK would be a good place to start learning about the SharePoint object model, as the terms (SPSite, SPWeb, etc.) that you'll come across in examples can be confusing.
Basically you will want to add your web reference to the SharePoint web service that you intend to use. The specific reference that you use will depend on what you're trying to accomplish, there's a whole list of available Windows SharePoint Services Web Services. Those are for general SharePoint tasks such as interacting with lists and sites; there's also a whole separate set of web services for SharePoint Server which is what you would use for interacting with the Business Data Catalog, Enterprise Search, and any of the other features that come with SharePoint Server, not Windows SharePoint Services.
When you add the web reference in visual studio, it will automatically generate the proxy in your project against the remote web service and you use the generated proxy to do what you want to do. However, working directly against the web services, pretty much everything will return a generic XmlNode that you'll have to deal with, so if you're working in .NET, a much better alternative to using the web services directly would be to download the SharePoint SDK and program against the server object model.
If you do end up using the object model, make sure you read both of these thoroughly:
Best Practices: Common Coding Issues When Using the SharePoint Object Model
Best Practices: Using Disposable Windows SharePoint Services Objects
Here is small tutorial on what you're trying to do:
http://www.xefteri.com/articles/show.cfm?id=15
Can any body have idea how to consume php soap web service that have no support wsdl.
I want to add reference in .Net to generate client but failed.
When i saw in browser with ?wsdl it shows message wsdl is not supported.
Simply said: you can not. WDSL is there for development environments to know how to deal with a web service. Whoever wrote the web serivce made sure (or was ignorant enough to now know) that it is not usable from any tooling support.
You might want to consult the PHP: SOAP Manual and verify that you wrote the PHP webservice correctly.
And you can also look at this example: PHP Webservice and C# / .NET SOAP Clients
You need to configure the SOAP Service to support WSDL
(Web Services Description Language) An
XML-based language for describing Web
services and how to access them.
Otherwise .NET won't know what or how to use it.
Before I venture down the path of creating one, I was wondering if anyone knows of a utility program which will take the REST Help page of a WCF Rest Service and create the relevant Client for C# consumption.
Similar to what svcutil.exe does for WCF Services or what wsdl.exe did for web services but for WCF REST Services
Kind Regards,
Andrew
EDIT Some more detail:
Please see this link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd203052.aspx
In the restful service using the WCF Rest Starter Kit Preview 2, they supply types which will be serialized. But My intention is be able to create clients form the help page which describes schemas. Clients could then be created for C#, JavaScript, ActionScript etc.. shearly as a strongly typed version of the restful service, not a requirement or necessity. It is a program or uitlity I am wondering exists which does this
I think you might be looking for the WebChannelFactory. It can generate a channel class based on a WCF-attributed REST interface.
Well, there will not be any use even if you would like to abstract. ALL Rest services can use HTTP verbs like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE
So, basically what your client can have is only a static class which can accept the end point, network credentials, a name value collection which needs to be passed and the verb to use.
This would be more of a utility class rather than a client.
I don't remember seeing WSDL or some contract based on which we can write clients for the REST services.
I hope you don't spend too much time basing your code on the current help page of a pre-release piece of code. Are you even sure this help page provides all the information you would need to produce clients?
Also, have you seen Prerelease 2 of the WCF REST Starter kit yet? If no, go look. There's new client-side technology in there.
Why would you create clients for a RESTful service? You don't need one - you just need to be able to initial HTTP requests. If you would like to call the same operations via SOAP or some other method then create a new endpoint for the service and a new contract and expose mex for it so that svcutil can consume it.