passing Dictionary in WCF service

Question

How to pass a dictionary in a method in WCf ...
I'm doing this

public void SendData(Dictionary<string, string > data)
{
    foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> item in data)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("{0} : {1}", item.Key, item.Value);
    }
}

When I access it as 192.X.X.X//Akhil/service.svc/SendData?data={}
here What/How should I pass arguments in data...some example please.

Answer 1

Generate your proxy (Say, "TestProxy") then do:

TestProxy.YourServiceClient client = new TestProxy.YourServiceClient();

Dictionary<string, string> testDict = new Dictionary<string, string>();

testDict.Add("test", "test1");

client.SendData(testDict);

WCF will serialize your Dictionary with no problem. The problem here is that you are trying to access your WCF service as if you exposed it as a REST Service through an HTTP Get request. I'm pretty sure based on your question, you aren't exposing this as a REST service. If you want to be able to do Get Requests, then google .Net WCF REST.

*Note: you might also want to look into the Request/Response SOA pattern, it's going to save a bunch of trouble down the road.

Update:

Here are some links that might point you in the right direction, you'll probably want to expose your WCF service as a JSON endpoint.

JSON / REST Link

Search Dictionary in this LINK to get some details on alternatives and gotchas in WCF JSON.

Hope these help. I have never done an Iphone app so I don't have any source code to give you.