Question

How to reference a webservice's public class/struct from a consuming app?

Asked by: sharpnet

Ok, here's the scenario:

I have a solution containing two projects: a webservice project and a web app project which has a web reference to the webservice project (the web app project is simply a test case).

My webservice project includes a class file containing multiple public structs.  I can use these just fine from within the webservice project itself.  However, I'm not able to see or reference the structs from within the web app project.

Isn't it true that when you add a web reference to a web service, you essentially get an "object" version of the webservice?  In that case I expect to be able to access any public members of the webservice.

I have previously created services that reference associated projects, and when I consume the service, I have access to the referenced projects and their members.  Why don't I have access to a class file that's in the same project as the service?

Frustrating...

The Namespace for the webservice (asmx) and the class file (cs) are the same.  In the web app, I have a using statement for the web reference.  I DO have access to the webmethods from the asmx, just not the associated class files and their public members...

HELP!!!

Nick

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Asked On
2005-03-17 at 16:37:23ID21355401
Tags

struct

,

webservice

,

webmethod

Topic

C# Programming Language

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: testnPosted on 2005-03-17 at 21:25:31ID: 13571917

I'd bet that it's there already but it won't be in the same namespace. Basically, WSDL should describe the struct and then the consumer will read that and transform that into its own struct/class. This means the web service consumer won't use the same class/struct as the server use. It will be just a similar construct of what in there. Please check in web service namespace that you just imported.

 

by: CeiledPosted on 2005-03-18 at 02:21:14ID: 13572992

A web reference is not the same as an assembly (or project) reference -- only web service types and types consumed directly by web service types are exposed, and remember that it's one web reference per .asmx file.

You say that the classes you're not seeing are structs...structs can not be used directly as web services, so the only way they'll be made available (via an auto-generated proxy) by the web reference is if the web service exposes a web method that takes it as a parameter. So you'd need something like this:

public struct MyStruct
{
    public int x;
}

[WebClass]
public class MyService : WebService
{
    [WebMethod]
    public void Foo(MyStruct value)
    {
        // Do interesting things here with value.
    }
}

That's basically the bare minimum...remove *any* piece of that code at all (except perhaps for inheriting from WebService -- that's optional, but recommended), and MyStruct will no longer be exposed by the web reference. If you're doing all that already, please post a sample of your code so we can take a closer look at what's going on. Ideally, this would be the smallest code possible that I could use to reproduce the problem.

 

by: jatinderalaghPosted on 2005-03-18 at 02:42:41ID: 13573099

Just look at this example. This Vehicle method will return the object type of Vehicle

[WebMethod()]
            [XmlInclude(typeof(Car)), XmlInclude(typeof(Bike))]
            public Vehicle Vehicle(string licenseNumber)
            {
                  if (licenseNumber == "0")
                  {
                        Vehicle v = new Car();
                        v.licenseNumber = licenseNumber;
                        return v;
                  }
                  else if (licenseNumber == "1")
                  {
                        Vehicle v = new Bike();
                        v.licenseNumber = licenseNumber;
                        return v;
                  }
                  else
                  {
                        return null;
                  }
            }


[XmlRoot("NewVehicle")]
      public abstract class Vehicle
      {
            public string licenseNumber;
            public DateTime make;
      }
 
      public class Car : Vehicle
      {
      }
 
      public class Bike : Vehicle
      {
      }

Now in wherever you want to use call this Web method


service  = new TestService.Service1();
TestService.Bike serviceBike = (TestService.Bike) service.Vehicle("1");

Cheers
Jatinder

 

by: sharpnetPosted on 2005-03-18 at 08:45:45ID: 13576136

As soon as I created a web method that required one my structs as a parameter and updated the web reference in my web app, the web app was able to see that particular struct.  That's just what I needed, thanks.

Nick

 

by: sharpnetPosted on 2005-03-18 at 09:12:35ID: 13576419

Just as a side note, I was also able to get the struct to show up in the referring web app when I used the struct as an output rather than an input, ie:

[WebMethod]
public MyStruct MethodA()
{
   MyStruct ms = new MyStruct();
   return ms;
}

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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