How to use a WSDL

Question

I need to consume a Web Service. They send me the WSDL file. What should I do to add it to my website and start using it as the proxy. ( If I put it on a Virtual Directory it is been discovered, but does it grants me the connection with the real web service?)

Answer 1

In visual studio.

• Create or open a project.
• Right-click project from solution explorer.
• Select "Add service refernce"
• Paste the address with WSDL you received.
• Click OK.

If no errors, you should be able to see the service reference in the object browser and all related methods.

Answer 2

I would fire up Visual Studio 2008, create a web project (or console app - doesn't matter), and then right-click on the project and pick "Add Service Reference" from the context menu.

Enter the file path and name into the box and import the WSDL - this will generate a simple, very basic WCF client for you to use. You should find a "YourservicenameClient" class in the generated code which should have methods for each of the defined methods on the WSDL contract.

Instantiate the client and call the methods you want to call - that's all there is!

YourServiceClient client = new YourServiceClient();
client.SayHello("World!");

UPDATE:
if you need to specify the remote URL (not using the one created by default), you can easily do this in the constructor of the proxy client:

YourServiceClient client = new YourServiceClient("configName", "remoteURL");

where "configName" is the name of the endpoint to use (you will use all the settings except the URL), and the "remoteURL" is a string representing the URL to connect to (instead of the one contained in the config).

Marc

Answer 3

Use WSDL.EXE utility to generate a Web Service proxy from WSDL.

You'll get a long C# source file that contains a class that looks like this:

/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("wsdl", "2.0.50727.42")]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Web.Services.WebServiceBindingAttribute(Name="MyService", Namespace="http://myservice.com/myservice")]
public partial class MyService : System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol {
    ...
}

In your client-side, Web-service-consuming code:

1. instantiate MyService.
2. set its Url property
3. invoke Web methods

Answer 4

An alternative cross-platform solution is gSOAP.