asked on

calling web service with XML output

I need to make 1000+ calls to the following web service and download the XML output that results from each call - http://comtrade.un.org/ws/

I am fairly new to web services, so please bear with me.

I wrote some C# code with which I can call the web service - see attached.

Now, I need to call the web service with a couple of parameters - http://comtrade.un.org/ws/get.aspx?cc=TOTAL&px=S3&r=372&y=2006&p=4,%208,%2024&rg=1,2&so=9999

I will need to loop through various values for "cc" and "r".

The web service returns a XML file which I plan to import into Excel.

Can someone please help me with the code that will help me download the files?

thanks.

namespace comtradedata
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            StringBuilder sbSource;

            // Create the web request  
            HttpWebRequest request
                = WebRequest.Create("http://comtrade.un.org/ws/") as HttpWebRequest;

            request.Proxy = WebProxy.GetDefaultProxy();         

            // Get response  
            using (HttpWebResponse response = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse)
            {
                // Get the response stream  
                StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());

                // Read it into a StringBuilder  
                sbSource = new StringBuilder(reader.ReadToEnd());

                // Console application output  
                Console.WriteLine(sbSource.ToString());  
                Console.ReadLine();
            } 
        }
    }
}

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lalitgada

check this

http://www.asp.net/ajax/tutorials/understanding-asp-net-ajax-web-services

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

mayank_joshi

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gery128

I think,
You should use XML classes available in .NET (like XMLDocument, XMLTextReader) to parse the response stream in XML and then you can convert your XML in Excel.
you should also check the HttpResponse's StatusCode property to know if the response status (i.e. check for 200)

gery128

Forget to add example code of XmlTextReader:

using System.Xml;  
  
// Retrieve XML document  
XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader("Your WEB-SERVICE URL");  
  
// Skip non-significant whitespace  
reader.WhitespaceHandling = WhitespaceHandling.Significant;  
  
// Read nodes one at a time  
while (reader.Read())  
{  
    // Print out info on node  
   //do some operations.
}

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IUAATech

ASKER

I am trying mayank_joshi's approach.

Which namespace should I use for "Response" and HttpCacheability? I already have a reference to System.Web namespace in my code.

SOLUTION

gery128

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IUAATech

ASKER

thanks gery128 - yeah, I am targeting a console app and I got it to work. thanks.