I want to create a proprietary minimal / bare-bone / data-light webservice. I prefer not to use the standard solutions like Restful, WebAPI, SOAP, WCF, etc.
I just want a web server listener that can receive and process 1 UTF8 string (own message format) and respond with 1 UTF8 string as the result.
My question is: can you give me a starting point, by providing a code example of the interface. Of course not the complete implementation.
Data transfer has to be as minimal as possible (no avoidable headers).
NB: Server language has to be .NET. Code example may be in C# or VB.
The most bare-bone thing to create a web service would be an HTTP Handler.
The sample I linked returns HTML but you could send back XML as well (or anything else really, just make sure to return an appropriate Content Type).
The call to your method would be a regular HTTP call of the URL of your Handler.
Related
I have a 3rd party that is sending SOAP XML messages, as the HTTP message body (using HTTP Post). I need to write a program to accept / process these messages.
I have a specification document which contains 2 WSDL definitions - GetTransaction and CutOff.
I am trying to use Postman to send a test message. Content-Type is set to application/xml and the body is set to raw / XML.
I am using C#, ASP.Net (4.7.2), the code is in a Class Library. I have a Controller (ApiController) with:
[HttpPost]
[ValidationAttributes.RequireHttps]
public HttpResponseMessage Service(XmlDocument reqData)
but reqData is always null. I have tried different types instead of XmlDocument.
Now if probably a good time to say that this is all new to me - I've not created a program to accept SOAP messages before.
Should I be creating a WCF Service Application (rather than a .Net Framework Class Library)?
I've tried adding the WSDL "definitions" but they don't seem to produce anything useful. E.g. there is reference to a "GetTransaction" method, but it has a parameter list of about 150 items!?
I have found quite a lot of stuff via Google but it always seems to be about sending, rather than receiving, SOAP messages.
I appreciate that I have not really included much code to look at, but I feel like I've started from the wrong place. So, any basic guidance, suggestions or links to tutorial sites would be most welcome.
I wrote a generic XML RPC framework in C#. I am now using it to call the Magento API.
I first called the login method and got a valid session ID. But I am not sure what the way to call the call method is because all examples I have seen so far have been of clients using a SOAP proxy to call it from either Java or PHP.
The syntax of those proxy calls reveals that the method signature must be something like this:
proxy.call ( stringSessionId, stringMethodYouWantToCall,
new object[] { param1, param2, ... } );
where call is the method I am referring to. stringMethodYouWantToCall is some PHP side method that the Magento framework's call method will call.
Thing is, when I do this, I get all sorts of errors. But I would digress if I talked about those.
My question really is: could you please provide me with a sample xml-rpc payload that the call method expects. I will build it from there.
Aside
Currently, a Java app calls the Magento API. I could use Fiddler to see the HTTP traffic / request body it sends to Magento, but I do not know how to configure Tomcat to send its traffic to Fiddler.
I am not sure writing your own XML RPC implementation is a good thing, as I am sure there are fully functional C# libraries out there which will solve the issue for you. But if this is some academic or a hobby project, then by all means you should take a look at this generice XML RPC client https://github.com/zendframework/zf2/blob/master/library/Zend/XmlRpc/Client.php. And for a specific use case take a look at the __call method here for the SOAP client https://github.com/zendframework/zf2/blob/master/library/Zend/Soap/Client.php
Just to be sure if you are going the right direction check how they have implemented the entire SOAP client would be a good reference.
Also please take a look here might help you? Which C# SOAP Client Library is easiest to use?
I was thinking ,
The WebApi along with routing mechanism works in such way that it reads the http verb ( GET POST etc...) and then searches for matched method names / parameters :
For example :
If it's GET and the URI is api/Customers/5:
method should start with Get
if it has ID so search a method which accepts int as parameter.
etc. (there are more rules).
I mostly believe they did it using reflection.
Question :
Isn't it a performance hit , for every URI request - to search all this data just to attach a method ?
Where I could easily send a very short string from a client which will imply on the method on the server side ?
Why not doing it the simple way ? Ok cause we want to use http verbs as meaning. OK. but so much operations just to execute a method
example #1
get api/Customers/5
could be
a.ashx?m=gc&id=5 (method=GetCustomer & id=5)
example #2
put api/Customers/5?v=123
could be
a.ashx?m=uc&id=5?v=123' (method=UpdateCustomer & id=5 & value=123)
mine is even shorter.
Dont get me wrong. I believe this api was done by very smart people who knew what they talk about.
Just want o know what am I missing.
Web api has a lot of options that you don't have with HTTP Handler if you don't code it
Full list: http://www.asp.net/whitepapers/mvc4-release-notes#_Toc317096197
OData support (via Queryable attribute)
Content Negotiation
Filters
Model binding and validation
Ability to self host outside of IIS
Link generation to related resources that incorporates routing rules
Full support for routes/routing
Ability to create custom help and test pages using IApiExplorer
Performance comparison HttpHandler vs WebAPI: http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/2012/Sep/04/ASPNET-Frameworks-and-Raw-Throughput-Performance
As always, you need to choose the the technology that suits you best, if you want performance go with Http Handler. If you want flexibility and rest go with Web API. You might want rest if you expose web services that other will consume
I have a problem here. Assume there's a basic calculator implemented in javascript hosted on a website ( I have googled it and to find an example and found this one: http://www.unitsconverter.net/calculator/ ). What I want to do is make a program that opens this website, enters some value and gets the return value. So, in our website calculator, the program:
- open the website
- enters an operand
- enters an operation
- enters an operand
- retrieve the result
Note: things should be done without the need to show anything to the user ( the browser for example ).
I did some search and found about HttpWebRequest and HttpWebRespond. But I think those can be used to post data to the server, which means, The file I'm sending data to must be php, aspx or jsp. But Javascript is client side. So, I think they are kind of useless to me in this case.
Any help?
Update:
I have managed to develop the web bot using WebBrowser Control tool ( found in System.Windows.Forms )
Here's a sample of the code:
webBrowser1.Navigate("LinkOfTheSiteYouWant"); // this will load the page specified in the string. You can add webBrowser1.ScriptErrorsSuppressed = true; to disable the script in a page
webBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("ElementId").SetAttribute("HTMLattrbute", "valueToBeSet");
Those are the main methods I have used to do what I wanted to.
I have found this video useful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P2KvFN_aLY
I guess you could use something like WatiN to pipe the user's input/output from your app to the website and return the results, but as another commenter pointed out, the value of this sort of thing when you could just write your own calculator fairly escapes me.
You'll need a JavaScript interpreter (engine) to parse all the JavaScript code on the page.
https://www.google.com/search?q=c%23+javascript+engine
What you're looking for is something more akin to a web service. The page you provided doesn't seem like it accepts any data in an HTTP POST and doesn't have any meaningful information in the source that you could scrape. If for example you wanted to programmatically make searches for eBay auctions, you could figure out how to correctly post data to it eg:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=http+for+dummies&_sacat=267&_odkw=http+for+dummies&_osacat=0
and then look through the http response for the information you're looking for. You'd probably need to create a regular expression to match the markup you're looking for like if you wanted to know how many results, you'd search the http response for this bit of markup:
<div class="alt w"><div class="cnt">Your search returned <b>0 items.</b></div></div>
As far as clientside/javascript stuff, you just plain aren't going to be able to do anything like what you're going for.
It is a matter of API: "Does the remote website expose any API for the required functionality?".
Well web resources that expose interactive API are called web service. There are tons of examples (Google Maps for istance).
You can access the API -depending on the Terms & Conditions of the service- through a client. The nature of the client depends on the kind of web service you are accessing.
A SOAP based service is based on SOAP protocol.
A REST based service is based on REST principles.
So, if there is an accessible web service called "Calculator", then you can access the service and, for istance, invoke the sum method.
In your example, the calculator is a Javascript implementation, so it is not a web service and it cannot be accessed via HTTP requests. Though, its implementation is still accessible: it is the javascript file where the calculator is implemented. You can always include the file in your website and access its functions via javascript (always mind terms and conditions!!).
A very common example is the jQuery library stored in Google Libraries.
Where can I find the RAW/object data of a SOAP request in C# when using WebServices.
Can't find it anywhere. Shouldent it be available in the HttpContext.Current.Request object ?
Shouldent it be available in the HttpContext.Current.Request object ?
No, it shouldn't.
What are you trying to accomplish? If you just want to see that data so you can log it, or as an aid to debugging, then see the example in the SoapExtension class. It's a working sample of an extension that can log input and output as XML. I've used a modified version of it myself.
If you're just looking to debug your web service, then you can install Fiddler, and that allows you to inspect the data sent to and from your web service.
It sounds like you're going to have to go lower level on your implementation if you want to see the raw XML. Check out the generic handler (ASHX extension). This will allow you to deal with the request/response streams directly. It's very low level, but gives you full control over the service lifecycle.
I found
Request.Params[null]
refers to the RAW data posted to the page in C# ASP.NET.