Introduction
This article explains how to consume Web Services without adding a Web Reference to the project.
Using the code
Use the WSRequestHelper
class to consume the Web Service. This has been tested on some public Web Services.
Properties
URL
: The URL of the Web Service; example: http://localhost/Project.WS.Auth/AuthService.asmx.Method
: The method to call; example: Login
.Parameters
: The parameters needed for the call.
Methods
CallWebServiceReturnString
: Call the Web Service and return the response as a string.CallWebService
: Call the Web Service and return the response as an XML document.
Dim SoapHelper As New WSRequestHelper(Me.txtWSDLAddress.Text, Me.txtMethod.Text)
Me.txtWSResponse.Text = SoapHelper.CallWebService().InnerText
Dim Request As New WebClient
Request.Headers.Add("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded")
Making the Call inside the class
Dim Req As WebClient = CreateRequest()
Dim MessageToPost As String = CreateMessage()
Return Req.UploadString(Me.PostURL, "POST", MessageToPost)
Dim Req As WebClient = CreateRequest()
Points of Interest
The call to the Web Service uses HTTP POST for the request, so may be some methods cannot be invoked with this approach. The code has not been tested with complex types. To use SOAP, use the Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.SoapMessage
class; it works. I have used this with some Cold Fusion Web Services as well.