Call a webservice without proxy

Question

I have to call a webservice from withing a C# programm. The webservice has most probably not a standard format. The interface description (wsdl and xsd) are very complicated, and using a proxy generating mechanismus results in hundreds of classes. The generated classes ar of little help since they are very generic, having mostly simple Object types as members.The best option is to build the SOAP message manually. That is also the way the webservice provider suggested to chose: Take the soap/xml messages that has to be sent and build the message according to the template. Now the question is how to build the message most efficiently. Of course hard coding the message string is an option, however I wonder if better options exists. If I have the complete message in a string, how do I best send the messages. Should I use a simple HttpRequest or can I use mechanisms of the wcf stack? My current approach to build the message looks like this:

string msg = envelopeBegin;
RouteType rootType = new RouteType();
XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(RouteType));
StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();
serializer.Serialize(stringWriter, rootType , customNamespace);
msg += stringWriter.ToString();
msg += envelopeEnd;

// Send the message over the wire

The Soap/xml message I have to generate looks like this

<env:Envelope>xmlns:env=http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/ xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:ns0="http://www.skanska.se/oagis/9/ws/faults"&gt; 
<env:Body> 
<ska:ShowSalesOrder xmlns:ska="http://www.skanska.se/oagis/9" systemEnvironmentCode="UTV" versionID="1.0" releaseID="9.0"> 
<!--plsql=.74s--> 
<ApplicationArea xmlns="http://www.openapplications.org/oagis/9"&gt; 
<!--user_name=SEBA_RAPPE--> 
<ska:Sender> 
<LogicalID>OEBS_SE</LogicalID> 
<ComponentID>SKAIS017I</ComponentID> 
<AuthorizationID>SEBA_RAPPE</AuthorizationID> 
<ska:ResponsibilityID>XXOM_INTEGRATION_SVT</ska:ResponsibilityID> 
</ska:Sender> 
<CreationDateTime>2010-02-26T15:03:27+01:00</CreationDateTime> 
<BODID>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</BODID> 
</ApplicationArea> 
<ska:DataArea> 
<Show xmlns="http://www.openapplications.org/oagis/9"&gt; 
<ResponseCriteria> 
<ResponseExpression actionCode="Never" expressionLanguage="xPath">*</ResponseExpression> 
</ResponseCriteria> 
</Show> 
<ska:SalesOrder> 
<SalesOrderHeader xmlns="http://www.openapplications.org/oagis/9"&gt; 
<DocumentID> 
<ID>141779</ID> 
</DocumentID> 
<RequestedShipDateTime>2009-11-04T07:00:54+01:00</RequestedShipDateTime>
</SalesOrderHeader>
</ska:SalesOrder>
</ska:DataArea>
</ska:ShowSalesOrder>
</env:Body>
</env:Envelope> 

Answer 1

One way to do it is to create an XML skeleton template containing placeholders for the values. Read the XML and replace the values with those from your object. Post the resulting XML to the web service using HttpWebRequest.

Even that this approach might work I would strongly recommend you creating a WCF proxy class and using this instead even if the web service contains hundreds of methods and objects that are not used. As long as it is a valid WSDL, WCF will handle it. Also if there are any changes to the web service all you have to do is regenerate the proxy. To avoid the ugliness of this web service create your own infrastructure that exposes only the useful methods and classes and hides the real call.

Answer 2

You can definitely still use the WCF infrastructure without requiring type definitions for all of the various messages. WCF specifically supports this through the Message class. Using it is not all that difficult. Here's some more information about them but the idea is basically you would use XML readers and writers to read and write messages.

Using the Message Class