How to consume/use the Web Service from Application

I have come across the situation where I have the Web Service wrote during the VB 6.0 using the Soap Toolkit from the COM component, I want to consume the Web Service from the .Net Application (C# or ASP.net). There are few ways to consume the Web Service either wrote from .Net version or any other application.

Here I would like to share how to consume the Web Service in .Net application. As most of us know what is Web Service so I will not go deep into that.
I have generated the WSDL (Web Service Descriptor Language) from the COM (+) component using the SOAP Toolkit. SOAP will generate the .WSDL, .WSMX and .asp file which we can use to access the Web Service.

Step 1:

1. Create the C# application (windows)
2. Add the Web Reference and Include the WSDL file under the Web Reference folder.
3. Give the name to that Web Reference i.e. CallWS
4. Set the Web Reference URL to something like
   http://servername/virtualdirectory/services/APIEnterprise.WSDL

Now you have the Web reference added to your application. You can now access the Web Service and exposed API's of that Web Service.
Open the form and add the button. On Button click event will access the Web Service and Its Function.
To access the Web Service we have to create the Instance from the Web Reference name.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Xml;

namespace ConsumeWebService
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void btnShow_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            CallWS.EyrAPIEnterprise call = new CallWS.EyrAPIEnterprise();

            call.Url = "http://server/virtualdirectory/services/APIEnterprise.asp";
            //If you are using the Default Credential then set this property to true.
            //call.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
            //If you are using Windows (NTLM) authetication then set the below property.
            call.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials;

            string systemID = string.Empty;

            XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();

            string xmlString = ((System.Xml.XmlNode[])call.GetSystems())[0].OuterXml;
            doc.LoadXml(xmlString);

            textBox1.Text = xmlString;

            //You can get the value from the XML output using the XPath

        }
    }
}

How to consume the ASP.net Web Service

Now in .net we can have the Web Service written in ASP.net (.asmx) and use that in ASP.net or C# (windows) application.

First we will create the Web Service using ASP.net. You can create using the VS IDE or Simple in any text editor.

A Web Service Example

In the following example we will use ASP.NET to create a simple Web Service that converts the temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius, and vice versa:

public class WebService : System.Web.Services.WebService {

    public WebService () {
 
        //Uncomment the following line if using designed components
        //InitializeComponent();
    }

    [WebMethod]
    public string HelloWorld() {
        return "Hello World";
    }

    [WebMethod]
    public int FahrenheitToCelsius(int far)
    {
        return ((((far) - 32) / 9) * 5);
    }

    [WebMethod]
    public int CelsiusToFahrenheit(int cel)
    {
        return ((((cel) * 9) / 5) + 32);
    }
}

This document is saved as an .asmx file. This is the ASP.NET file extension for XML Web Services.

So when you open the Web Service from the browser using the following

http://localhost:4834/WebSite1/WebService.asmx

You will see the below list of the methods which we made as the Web Method. This the web methods exposed by the Web Service. Now for to test, you can click on any method for e.g. CelciusToFarheneit, it will show you the next part where you can input the number and click on the Invoke button.

The Web service will then take that Input and convert the value from celcius to Far as show below in the next picture.





Output



How to Call the Web Service from ASP.net Application

To access the Web Service and exposed function, I am going to use the same approach as I did first time when accessing SOAP Web service. There are few other ways also but just to keep in sync I am using the same one.

You have to follow the Step 1 of the first section, and the following code

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Xml;

namespace ConsumeWebService
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void btnShow_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            localhost.WebService call = new localhost.WebService();

            call.Url = "http://localhost:4834/WebSite1/WebService.asmx";
            call.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
            int far = call.CelsiusToFahrenheit(30);
            int cel = call.FahrenheitToCelsius(86);
            StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
            result.Append("30 Celcius = " + far + " Fahrenheit");
            result.AppendLine();
            result.Append("86 Fahrenheit = " + cel + " Celcius");
            textBox1.Text = result.ToString();

        }
    }
}