Create your first RESTful service with WCF 3.5

What is REST

REST is a term coined by Roy Fielding in his Ph.D. dissertation to describe an architecture style of networked systems.

REST is an acronym standing for Representational State Transfer.

 

Problem with SOAP

 

In particular web scenarios, it is necessary to have high interoperability and to use only XML messages for transmitting over HTTP without the advantage of the high end WS* specification of the protocol. For security, we can still reply in HTTPS and SSL. So now it's becoming pretty common to use SOAP without WS* specifications when we need to achieve high interoperability. This is where REST is useful. In a nutshell.

Hence many used SOAP without WS* specification

1. Often called simple SOAP
2. Increases interoperability potential
3. Framework / tools hide XML / HTTP, i.e. tool support for generating clients and server from WDSL definitions which create XML schema automatically and that schema hides underlying XML details. So that way developers still go for SOAP because of tool support from all major vendors, even though that may not be able to take advantage of many additional protocols that were designed to support.

What is POX

 

When we do not really need SOAP?

It is just exchanging XML message over HTTP without SOAP, referred to as plain -Old XML (POX).

1. Using this, interoperability is virtually guaranteed.
2. But working with this involves direct coding for XML and HTTP, which is complex at times. Have to use various XML API for writing XML based codes, and has to be familiar with HTTP stack for actually programming logic for sending and receiving messages. This is one main reason why many developers switch back to SOAP programming model, which have tool support and automatic code generation especially at the client side.
   
   POX applications can be defined in a RESTful way when actions are defined by HTTPS verbs.

Understanding REST

1. REST is not a protocol like SOAP is; it is an architectural design.
2. An architecture for building services that build on HTTP.

Fundamentally different from SOAP

1. SOAP defines a transport neutral model focused on custom operations
2. REST defines transport specific (HTTP) model focused on resources.

Builds on a uniform interface and common data formats

1. HTTP methods - GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.
   
   In SOAP we define and rely on custom service contracts / operations.
   
   In REST, we focus on defining resources and use unique URI to identify and represent these resources. Then we build services around these uniform interfaces instead of custom service contract that all services will use. So when we use HTTP to implement RESTful services, these uniform interfaces are defined by HTTP methods, i.e. GET, POST etc, so those operations that would be able to invoke on our resource. And when we get a resource then would be retrieving a representation of that resource over the protocol. So what we get is a representation of our resource and we can use a wide variety of formats to represent that resource. But in the end we will always use a uniform resource to interact with those resources that are exposed by a service.
    
2. Data Formats - HTML, XML, JSON, RSS

REST versus SOAP

SOAP emphasizes Verbs while REST emphasizes nouns or resources.

 

So I can GET a User {}, to retrieve a representation, or I can POST a User {} to create one, or I can DELETE User {} to delete a representation and I can PUT the User {} to update in the system. So I can use any of standard HTTP operations with any of these resources. So that's the beauty of REST, we have standard uniform interfaces that can be apply equally to all of our resources that we expose through that service, and they provide standard CRUD operations that we typically expose through SOAP services as well, and when we do that we define a standard representation for those resources that we would be sending back to the wire.

What is Resource orientated architecture (ROA)

With REST, we build a resource oriented architecture, because our focus is now the resource rather than operations. While writing ROA based application, we focus on following:

1. We focus on identifying and naming resources URIs.
2. How to represent then XML formats.
3. How to navigate between then HREFs
4. And we use a Uniform interface to interact with them.

HTTP defines the uniform interface, the HTTP verbs

• Constraining operations set simplifies model.

Primary Benefits

1. Widespread interoperability, basically anyone who supports HTTP and XML messages can use your service.
2. Scalability, because we are leveraging HTTP, we can now take advantage of the entire wide spread web infrastructure and optimization built around that specific protocol and those specific operations.

Importance of GET

Web is primarily built on GET, in fact 90% of web traffic is GET, which are well defined operations and thus has no side effects.

1. GET simply means retrieves the representation of a resource.
2. Should not cause any unsafe side effects.
3. POST, PUT, DELETE provides additional semantics. But with no guarantee.

REST uses / embraces the importance of GET, unlike SOAP which uses POST.

1. While SOAP largely ignored its importance.
2. With REST we get the full advantage of web infrastructure.
3. With SOAP, we have to build that stuff ourselves.
   
   

So BIG question. When to use what?

Each architecture, style and format has its own pros and cons.

Use SOAP + WS*

1. In large enterprises
2. In complex situations where we need COM+ like capabilities.
3. Can be overkill in many distributed scenarios today.
4. Good tools support provided by the big SOAP vendors.

Use REST

1. When we need interoperable, scalable transfer of information.
2. Large web vendors are adopting it (Amazon, Yahoo, Flickr)
3. But there is limited tool support beyond HTTP and XML Stack.

WCF and support for programming models

 

WCF doesn't take sides, it provides a unified programming model and allows use of SOAP, POX, REST, and other data formats.

WCF and support for REST

1. Most of built in WCF bindings uses SOAP and WS* by default.
2. These binding have to be configured manually to disable SOAP.
3. WCF 3.5 comes with a new Web (REST) programming model, found in System.ServiceModel.Web.dll. This allows us to map HTTP requests to methods Via URI templates.
4. We can enable the web model with a new binding / behavior, apply to messaging layer using WebHttpBinding and Apply to dispatcher using WebHttpBehavior.

Now we will take WCF REST attributes one by one and will explore their purpose. They can found in System.ServiceModel.Web.dll

 

A. WebHttpBinding

1. WebHttpBinding produces an appropriate HTTP based channel.
2. Produce an HTTP transport channel.
3. We can customize certain setting like cookies, proxy, security etc.
4. Security is handled by WebHttpSecurity (HTTP vs HTTS)
5. Produces a WebMessageEncoder (Support XML and JSON formatted messages,)

B. WebHttpBehavior

After configuring binding, we enable web HTTP behavior on particular endpoint which uses web http binding.

1. WebHttpBehavior customizes the HTTP based dispatching logic.
2. It Overrides operation selection, serialization, and invocation.

C. WebGet Attribute

1. Use to actually map incoming HTTP GET requests to particular WCF operations.
2. We do so by providing a URI template to defining URI mapping
3. The URI template variable map method parameters by name.
4. Request/ response format control body format, i.e. which message format to use, JSON etc.

[ServiceContract]
    public interface IEvalService
    {
        [WebGet(UriTemplate="eval/{id}")]
        [OperationContract]        Eval GetEval(string id);

We added WebGet attribute to define mapping from the incoming URI to the method. So here UriTemplate parameter {id} matches the method signature parameter (string id). So when a request arrives with this parameter URI, that request will be handled by this method.

D. WebInvoke Attribute

1. It is meant to be used for all other HTTP verbs, other than GET, to WCF operations.
2. It add a mehods property for specifying the verb (default is POST).
3. Allows mapping UriTemplate variable.
4. Body is deserialiazed into remaining parameter.

[ServiceContract]
    public interface IEvalService
    {
        [WebInvoke(Method="POST", UriTemplate="evals")]
        [OperationContract]
        void SubmitEval(Eval eval);

E. UriTemplate

1. System.UriTemplate implements URI template syntax
2. UriTemplate syntax allows you to specify variable in URI space.
3. UriTemplate.Bind fills variable with actual values.
4. UriTemplate.Match verifies match and exact actual values.
5. Can use wildcard characters "*" to match anything.

UriTemplate = "services/evals?name={name}&detailed={detailed}

By now we know the important attributes, so it's time we start writing our first REST service with WCF.

Step 1

 

Create a WCF project and name the solution RESTFulService. Use "ServiceLibrary" as the name of the project.

Step 2

 

Open the ServiceLibrary project and delete all the default files.

Step 3

 

Add a class as a new item to the ServiceLibrary project and name it "EvalService.cs".

Step 4

 

Open EvalService.cs and create a class like below. This is actually a data contract for our service; we call it Eval class, i.e. evaluation class, which will have a message submitter name, id, timesend, and comment.

[DataContract(Namespace = "http://vishalnayan.wordpress.com/evals")]
    public class Eval
    {
        [DataMember]
        public string Id;
        [DataMember]
        public string Submitter;
        [DataMember]
        public DateTime Timesent;
        [DataMember]
        public string Comments;
    }

Step 5

 

Next create a interface called IEvalService and put [ServiceContract] attribute.

[ServiceContract]
    public interface IEvalService
    {
        [OperationContract]
        void SubmitEval(Eval eval);
        [OperationContract]
        Eval GetEval(string id);

        [OperationContract]
        List<Eval> GetAllEvals();

        [OperationContract]
        List<Eval> GetEvalsBySubmitter(string submitter);

        [OperationContract]
        void RemoveEval(string id);
    }

Step 6

 

Create a class EvalService which will implement this interface. We will attribute this class to support single instance mode.

[ServiceBehavior(InstanceContextMode = InstanceContextMode.Single)]
    public class EvalService : IEvalService
    {
        List<Eval> evals = new List<Eval>();
        int evalCount = 0;

        #region IEvalService Members

        public void SubmitEval(Eval eval)
        {
            eval.Id = (++evalCount).ToString();
            evals.Add(eval);
        }

        public Eval GetEval(string id)
        {
            return evals.First(e => e.Id.Equals(id));
        }

        public List<Eval> GetAllEvals()
        {
            return this.GetEvalsBySubmitter(null);
        }

        public List<Eval> GetEvalsBySubmitter(string submitter)
        {
            if (submitter == null || submitter.Equals(""))
                return evals;
            else
                return evals.Where(e => e.Submitter.ToLower().Equals(submitter.ToLower())).ToList<Eval>();
        }

        public void RemoveEval(string id)
        {
            evals.RemoveAll(e => e.Id.Equals(id));
        }

Let's take a brief look at what all this method does:

Before that we have to create a collection object List of eval type for storage.

List<Eval> evals = new List<Eval>();

public void SubmitEval(Eval eval)
        {
            eval.Id = (++evalCount).ToString();
            evals.Add(eval);
        }

Description

 

It takes eval and adds it to the List. We auto-generate the id before we add. This id will uniquely identify a single eval submission.

public Eval GetEval(string id)
        {
            return evals.First(e => e.Id.Equals(id));
        }

Description

 

it return the eval for the id submitted.

public List<Eval> GetAllEvals()
      {
          return this.GetEvalsBySubmitter(null);
      }

Description

 

It returns all the evals submitted. It actually calls another method GetEvalsBySubmitter().

public List<Eval> GetEvalsBySubmitter(string submitter)
        {
            if (submitter == null || submitter.Equals(""))
                return evals;
            else
                return evals.Where(e => e.Submitter.ToLower().Equals(submitter.ToLower())).ToList<Eval>();
        }

Description

 

it takes a submitter name to return the evals submitted by him/her. If no name is provided it will return all evals.

 

Step 7

 

Now open app.config to create and expose endpoints. Right click the app.config file and open it in WCF configuration wizard.

• create a mex endpoint with mexhttpbinding. Name it mex .
• create a EvalService endpoint with basichttpbinding.
• create a base address, http://localhost:8888/evals

It should look like this shown below:

 

Step 8

 

Our service endpoint infrastructure is ready, so press F5 to launch WCF cleint to test out service methods exposed by this endpoint.

We are using this WCF test client to invoke SubmitEval method. Double-click SubmitEval() from the left hand side and you can see I am sending a comment, the submitter values and then click to invoke button to send this across proxy.

Later to see whether what we submitted was successfully saved as eval in our list collection object, we will invoke the GetEval() method, so now double-click GetEval() and provide 1 as the id.

You can see it return the evals message which we submitted through SubmitEval().

Step 9

 

Now this is happeing as a SOAP message, so now we have to make our service method to support REST full way of invocation.

1. Come back to ServiceLibrary project and add a reference for the System.ServiceModel.Web assembly.
   
   

   
   
2. Come back to the IEvalService interface and update it like below:
   

[ServiceContract]
    public interface IEvalService
    {
        [WebInvoke(Method = "POST", UriTemplate = "evals")]
        [OperationContract]
        void SubmitEval(Eval eval);

        [WebGet(UriTemplate = "eval/{id}")]
        [OperationContract]
        Eval GetEval(string id);

        [WebGet(UriTemplate = "evals")]
        [OperationContract]
        List<Eval> GetAllEvals();

        [WebGet(UriTemplate = "evals/{submitter}")]
        [OperationContract]
        List<Eval> GetEvalsBySubmitter(string submitter);

        [WebInvoke(Method = "DELETE", UriTemplate = "eval/{id}")]
        [OperationContract]
        void RemoveEval(string id);
    }

Read the above part of article where we have discussed about WebInvoke and WebGet attributes.

There will be no change in EvalService class implementing this interface.

Step 10

 

Right click the RESTfulService solution and add a console project which will host our REST service now. Call it as ConsolHost.

Step 11

 

Open ConsolHost and Left click a reference to add tjhe following .NET assemblies:

1. System.ServiceModel.Description;
2. System.ServiceModel;

Also browse and add a ServiceLibrary assembly:

Step 12

 

Open program.cs and write the code shown below:

class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ServiceHost host = new ServiceHost(typeof(EvalService));
            try
            {
                host.Open();
                PrintServiceInfo(host);
                Console.ReadLine();
                host.Close();

            }
            catch(Exception e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(e);
                host.Abort();

            }
        }
        static void PrintServiceInfo(ServiceHost host)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("{0} is running with these endpoints", host.Description.ServiceType);
            foreach (ServiceEndpoint se in host.Description.Endpoints)
                Console.WriteLine(se.Address);
        }
    }

Step 13

 

Now we need configure host app.config file to expose REST methods via endpoint.

So open app.config file and configure it like below:

1. Create a endpoint with WebHttpBinding binding configuration which support REST calls:
   
   

    
2. Create a service behavior configuration and get HttpGetEnabled true:
   
   

    
3. Create a new endpoint behavior configuration; name it Web and add web Http as the endpoint behavior element extention. This is important for supporting REST invocation.
   
   
4. Add a Host Base address
   

   <baseAddresses>
               <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8181/evalservice" />
             </baseAddresses>

5. Now the whole Host app.config file will look like this:
   
   

Step 14

 

Now we are ready to launch our service which is listening to all incoming calls. Set the multiple project startup option:

 

Now press F5 and this will launch our Host console screen showing details of endpoint. Also the WCF client application will be launched.

Double click SubmitEval() and write a comment and submitter name. Now this message is not using SOAP; it is using REST.

Click to GetEval() and provide an id to see the message back.

This is the same way we were doing the SOAP way, using basicHttpBinding. Now we are sending message using REST, using webHttpBinding.

Step 15

 

Now let's use a browser and try to access an eval method.

Copy a base address into an URL and then followed by an URI template.

i.e. base address : http://localhost:8181/evalservice

URITemplate :"evals"

So the URL becomes like this: http://localhost:8181/evalservice/evals

Important
UriTemplate = "evals", this actually means we are adding evals to our base address, i.e.

http://localhost:8181/evalservice/evals, and corresponding to this URI we have the method shown below:

     [WebGet(UriTemplate = "evals")]
        [OperationContract]
        List<Eval> GetAllEvals();

So when we call the http://localhost:8181/evalservice/evals URI, then GetAllEvals() will be called. Similarly for other URITemplates.

Step 16

 

Using httputil.js to call methods the REST ful way.

Httputil.js is a javascript utility for calling via HTTP verbs, i.e POST, DELETE etc. so we will use this utility to send XML message to REST methods.

Below I have created a xml file, which compliments our eval class variable: 

[WebInvoke(Method="POST", UriTemplate="evals")]
       [OperationContract]
       void SubmitEval(Eval eval);

Copy httputil.js and this xml file in your solution directory and see below how to invoke REST method using this utility. Also keep the Host application up and running to listen to any incoming calls. 

• Open visual studio command prompt.
  
  

  
  

Browse to you directory where you have copied the XML files and httputil.js file.

So the path for invoking is like this:

httputil.js <HTTP Verb> <URI for file,i.e. xml file>

httputil.js POST http://localhost:8181/evalservice/evals vishal-eval.xml

Ok, it appears that our message has been sent successfully.

Note that we are calling URI template evals with webinvoke POST, so URI template evals will navigate it to method below:

[WebInvoke(Method="POST", UriTemplate="evals")]
        [OperationContract]
        void SubmitEval(Eval eval);

so SubmitEval() will be called.

Now let us check whether eval got submitted or not.

Copy this URL http://localhost:8181/evalservice/evals in browser and hit . now here 

[WebGet(UriTemplate = "evals" /*, ResponseFormat=WebMessageFormat.Json*/)]
        [OperationContract]
        List<Eval> GetAllEvals();

Will be called.

Cool, you can see our eval was submitted. Try sending more message like this:

 

Refresh the browser and see all the evals submitted.

 

Now we are interested in knowing what evals were submitted by a particular submitter say vishal. For this we have called the URI template shown below, which will point to the GetEvalsBySUbmitter method.

[WebGet(UriTemplate = "evals/{submitter}")]
        [OperationContract]
        List<Eval> GetEvalsBySubmitter(string submitter);

So the URI will look like this now: 

http://localhost:8181/evalservice/evals/vishal

hit and see the result, it will show all evals submitted by only vishal.

 

Now we are interested in finding the evals, by providing the id.

So the URI template for this is:

[WebGet(UriTemplate = "eval/{id}")]
        [OperationContract]
        Eval GetEval(string id);

And the URL will look like this:

 

http://localhost:8181/evalservice/eval/1

and the result would look like this:

Step 17

 

Let us try some more HTTP Verbs for deleting any eval.

Type the path shown below:

httputil.js DELETE http://localhost:8181/evalservice/eval/2

so here we are calling a URI to delete an eval. In this case the method shown below will be called:

[WebInvoke(Method = "DELETE", UriTemplate = "eval/{id}")]
        [OperationContract]
        void RemoveEval(string id);

Refresh the browser; you will see now that eval of id=2, will be deleted and is not available.

Cool, isn't it?

Step 18

 

Exploring WebServiceHost / Factory.

So by this we saw how to create restful operations and how to configure the app.config file to support restful configuration. We also saw how to call using a WCF client application and Httputil.js utility.

If you notice we are hosting our service using the follwing things: 

1. we are using ServiceHost Class to host our service
2. we have configured endpoint behavior with web http extension for REST support.
   

   <endpointBehaviors>
           <behavior name="Web">
             <webHttp />
           </behavior>
         </endpointBehaviors>

3. we have created a service behavior 

   <serviceBehaviors>
           <behavior name="Default">
             <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
             <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" />
           </behavior>
         </serviceBehaviors>

Well now we will use a WebService Host class to manage all these. For this add a referenc for the System.ServiceModel.Web assembly in the ConsolHost Project.

Open app.config file and delete everything except the base address only. So after deleting rest, the app.config file will look like below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <system.web>
    <compilation debug="true" />
  </system.web>
  <!-- When deploying the service library project, the content of the config file must be added to the host's
  app.config file. System.Configuration does not support config files for libraries. -->
  <system.serviceModel>
    <services>
      <service  name="ServiceLibrary.EvalService">
        <host>
          <baseAddresses>
            <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8181/evalservice" />
          </baseAddresses>
        </host>
      </service>
    </services>
  </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

Open Program.cs and change the ServiceHost to the WebServiceHost class. So now the program.cs looks like below: 

static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            WebServiceHost host = new WebServiceHost(typeof(EvalService));
            try
            {
                host.Open();
                PrintServiceInfo(host);
                Console.ReadLine();
                host.Close();

            }
            catch(Exception e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(e);
                host.Abort();

            }
        }

That's all; with the help of WebServiceHost, the rest of the app configuration settings are not required.

Now press F5 and run the host application.

All is perfect. Let's check in the browser.

http://localhost:8181/evalservice/evals

This too seems to be perfect. Now let's go back to httputil.js again and POST the xml message which have.

So type this path into the Visual Studio command prompt:

Httputil.js POST http://localhost:8181/evalservice/evals vishal-eval.xml

Refresh the browser.

Cools, seems after we applied WebServiceHost class, all is working like before. We need not do anything extra to call our method; the webservicehost takes care of everything. This is also handy when we host our service with IIS.

Step 19

 

Hosting our service with IIS and working with WebServiceHost

1. Add a new WCF website in RestfulService solution. Name it EvalSite.
   
   

    
2. Delete all the files udner App_Code
3. rename service.svc to eval.svc
4. open web.config and delete entire system.servicemodel setting. So we don't have any WCF configuration setting what so ever.
5. Add a reference to this site to ServiceLibrary assembly.
6. Now open eval.svc and you will have something like below;
   

   <%@ ServiceHost Language="C#" Debug="true"
   Service="Service" CodeBehind="~/App_Code/Service.cs" %>

   Delete few attributes and change it to something like below:       

   <%@ ServiceHost Service="ServiceLibrary" Factory="System.ServiceModel.Activation.WebServiceHostFactory" %>

   It's going to create a web service host object for us behind the scene when this svc file is activated, and that web service host object will add endpoints for us automatically; at the base address for this service, and that base address will be the address of this svc file.
   
   http://localhost:3688/EvalSite/eval.svc
   And then automatically add webhttpbinding endpoint and configure with webhttpbehavior. So now we have a configure-free mechanism to host REST full service with WCF with no WCF configuration settings.
   
    
7. So we are ready now; right-click on eval.svc and click "View in Browse".
   
   

So see there is no service. This is because we haven't provided a URI to any REST method.

So type this into the browser:

http://localhost:3688/EvalSite/eval.svc/evals
http://localhost:3688/EvalSite/eval.svc is our base address, and /evals is relative address which is URI template pointing to GetAllEvals () method.

So here in this WCF site example, our base address was changed but the relative address remains the same.

Notice that we got an empty array of eval, so our service is working fine. Now we will use again httputil.js utility to send a message.

So open the command prompt and type the URL shown below; this is changed to WCF:

httputil.js POST http://localhost:3688/EvalSite/eval.svc/evals vivek-eval.xml

So we will do it for the rest of the xml files as well.

Now refresh the browser and see all evals or by evals id or by eval name.

Cool, we got to see all evals through this new URL http://localhost:3688/EvalSite/eval.svc/evals, which IIS is hosting for us. And the benefit is that we need not to do any configuration at all; we mapped our service to svc file and told to use WebServiceHostFactory, which behind the scenes uses a webservicehost class which does auto configurations.

Step 20

 

Creating a Client project for Calling a REST service programitically

Until here we saw how we can host and call a REST services in IIS and call using a web browser. But in most cases we will write some client code to actually programitically call a REST service. So let us create a cleint console project.

For this we need a service contract annotated with webget and webinvoke for the client to use a way similar to the service side. We can use the same contract that we used at the service side at the cleint side as well. So we will use the IEvalService service contract on the client and then use this in conjunction with special channel factory that knows how to translate these method calls into a http request, which is WebChannelFactory.
So we will add a reference directly to the ServiceLibrary to the client console project. We will not use add service refrence because it uses the SOAP API.

1. Add a new console client project to RESTfulService Solution.
2. Add ServiceLibrary assembly to this project directly. Don't use add service reference.
3. Add System.ServiceModel.Web assembly.
4. Open program.cs and write the code shown below:
   

   Console.WriteLine("**** Calling WCF service RESTway***");
   WebChannelFactory<ServiceLibrary.IEvalService> cf =
   new WebChannelFactory<ServiceLibrary.IEvalService>(
   new Uri("http://localhost:8181/evalservice"));
   
   ServiceLibrary.IEvalService client = cf.CreateChannel();

WebChannelFactory is like a service host that automatically configures the underlying runtime with webhttpbinding and webhttpbehavior doing the job for us.
 
So the whole code looks like this:

static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("**** Calling WCF service RESTway***");
            WebChannelFactory<ServiceLibrary.IEvalService> cf =
                new WebChannelFactory<ServiceLibrary.IEvalService>(
                    new Uri("http://localhost:8181/evalservice"));

            ServiceLibrary.IEvalService client = cf.CreateChannel();

            Console.WriteLine("\nPlease enter a command.\n 1. exit \n 2. submit \n 3. get \n 4. list \n 5. remove \n");
            string command = Console.ReadLine();

            while (!command.Equals("exit"))
            {
                switch (command)
                {
                    case "submit":

                        Console.WriteLine("Please enter your name:");
                        string name = Console.ReadLine();
                        Console.WriteLine("Please enter your comments:");
                        string comments = Console.ReadLine();

                        Eval eval = new Eval();
                        eval.Timesent = DateTime.Now;
                        eval.Submitter = name;
                        eval.Comments = comments;
                        client.SubmitEval(eval);

                        Console.WriteLine("Evaluation submitted!\n");
                        break;

                    case "get":
                        Console.WriteLine("Please enter the eval id:");
                        string id = Console.ReadLine();

                        Eval fe = client.GetEval(id);
                        Console.WriteLine("{0} -- {1} said: {2} (id {3})\n", fe.Timesent, fe.Submitter, fe.Comments, fe.Id
;
                        break;

                    case "list":

                        Console.WriteLine("Please enter the submitter name:");
                        name = Console.ReadLine();

                        List<Eval> evals = client.GetEvalsBySubmitter(name);

                        evals.ForEach(e => Console.WriteLine("{0} -- {1} said: {2} (id {3})", e.Timesent, e.Submitter, e.Comments, e.Id));
                        Console.WriteLine();
                        break;

                    case "remove":

                        Console.WriteLine("Please enter the eval id:");
                        id = Console.ReadLine();

                        client.RemoveEval(id);

                        Console.WriteLine("Evaluation {0} removed!\n", id);
                        break;

                    default:
                        Console.WriteLine("Unsupported command.");
                        break;
                }

                Console.WriteLine("Please enter a command: ");
                command = Console.ReadLine();
            }
        }

That code is self-explanatory as we are asking for a command and then calling a particular method.

So now run the host program and then run the client console application.

Cool; it's working fine.

Let's check in the browser as well:

Hope you enjoyed this Restful ride and you now can create your own REST full services.

 

read more about REST here

CHEERS.......