C# HttpWebRequest with WSDL URL

Question

this is a very simple question:

Normally when you connect with a web server you have the .asmx address and then the different methods (in this case let's call it WebService1.asmx and the method HelloWorld).The call in this case would be something like this:

HttpWebRequest webRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(@"http://localhost:56405/WebService1.asmx?op=HelloWorld");
In my case I just have the WSDL address (https://www.websirte.es:8443/webservices/methodIhavetocall?wsdl) and I also know the parameters to call the method. So if i want to create a HttpWebRequest how should I proceed?

Welcome on stackoverflow.com. Can you clarify your question please? Do you ask how to create your own WebService from a wsdl file? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1394930/how-to-generate-web-service-out-of-wsdl — wp78de, Sep 24 '17 at 22:32

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 25 '17 at 00:17

When adding parameters to a URL you are doing a HTTP GET. If you are doing "standard" SOAP over HTTP your assumption is incorrect. All SOAP services use POST. They can technically use GET but typically you see POST. The reason is simple. SOAP XML is complex and including that in the URL is going to be a real pain.

Assuming you have a simple piece of XML like:

<Customer>
    <Name>John</Name>
</Customer>

The URL in a get is going to be something horrendous.

Now how does a server know which operation to execute. Well it looks at the request made. The operation is not specified in the URL.

For example I have a service that has two operations ListAccountsForStatus and ListTelephonicContactsByDate both of which runs at the URL of http://my-server:9100/AccountService/V1. However the requests look different:

POST  http://my-server:9100/AccountService/V1
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Content-Type: text/xml;charset=UTF-8
SOAPAction: "http://www.insol.irix.com.au/ECollNXDB_V1/EcollUtilsServices/ListTelephonicContactsByDate"
Content-Length: 1337
Host: my-server:9100
Connection: Keep-Alive
User-Agent: Apache-HttpClient/4.1.1 (java 1.5)
<soapenv:Envelope>
<soapenv:Header/>
<soapenv:Body>
  <ecol:ListTelephonicContactsByDate>
     <ecol:ListTelephonicContactsByDateReq>

        <ecol:Date>2016-08-04</ecol:Date>
     </ecol:ListTelephonicContactsByDateReq>
  </ecol:ListTelephonicContactsByDate>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

And the second one:

  POSThttp://my-server:9100/AccountService/V1 HTTP/1.1
  Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
  Content-Type: text/xml;charset=UTF-8
  SOAPAction: "http://www.insol.irix.com.au/ECollNXDB_V1/EcollUtilsServices/GetAccountStatusInfo"
  Content-Length: 1329
  Host: my-server:9100
  Connection: Keep-Alive
  User-Agent: Apache-HttpClient/4.1.1 (java 1.5)

  <soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:ecol="http://www.insol.irix.com.au/ECollNXDB_V1" xmlns:irix="http://www.insol.irix.com.au/IRIX_Headers_V1" xmlns:irix1="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/IRIXContract.MsgHeaderBase">
     <soapenv:Header/>
     <soapenv:Body>
        <ecol:GetAccountStatusInfo>
           <ecol:GetAccountStatusInfoReq>

              <ecol:accountNumber>376062766403006</ecol:accountNumber>
           </ecol:GetAccountStatusInfoReq>
        </ecol:GetAccountStatusInfo>
     </soapenv:Body>
  </soapenv:Envelope>

Notice that the operation is specified in the SOAPAction header. So in short for you to use a SOAP web service.

Point your code generation library (in your case look for WCF Blue, or how to generate code from WSDL for c#) to the WSDL and generate required classes.
Use the generated classes to interact with service using the URL only not the WSDL url.

You do NOT want to hand code the xml requests and read the responses.

C# HttpWebRequest with WSDL URL

1 Answers1