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11.08.07
Keep Web Services Simple
 By Mads Kristensen
The easy way for .NET developers to create an API over HTTP is to use SOAP web services.
It's natively supported by .NET and has rich support for more complex data types such as the DataSet. The problem with SOAP is that it isn't well supported by other platforms and to consume a .NET SOAP web service in PHP is a nightmare.
If you want to build an API for your web application over HTTP, then consider a simpler approach that is much faster, supports both GET and POST, can easily be RESTful, and works on all platforms. XML-RPC is a good way of doing such a service, but we can do it even simpler and define our own contract easily.
The class
I've build a very small class, RpcService, that let's you pass plain text both ways over HTTP. The text will probably be XML for a more structured contract, but that's up to you. The class has a static Send method and a static Receive method.
The Send method passes the plain text or XML to the request stream and returns the reply as a string. You can then parse the XML your self if needed. The Receive method listens for requests with text in the request stream and returns it as a string. Now you have both ends of the API - the client and the server.
Example
Let's say you want to build a stock quote service that returns the quote of a given stock based on the a stock symbol. You then start by adding an HttpHandler to your website called stock.ashx. That file will function as your web service end point. In the handler's ProcessRequest method you then call the Receive method to get the text from the request stream. It contains the stock symbol and now you need to respond with the current stock quote. You simply just write the quote using Response.Write in order to return it. It could look like this:
Now you have the service ready on the server. The only thing missing is a way to consume the service . In order to do that we need to use the Send method of the RpcService class. It could look like this:
Continue reading this article.
About the Author:
Mads Kristensen currently works as a Senior Developer at Traceworks located
in Copenhagen, Denmark. Mads graduated from Copenhagen Technical Academy with a multimedia degree in
2003, but has been a professional developer since 2000. His main focus is on ASP.NET but is responsible for Winforms, Windows- and
web services in his daily work as well. A true .NET developer with great passion for the simple solution.
http://www.madskristensen.dk/
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