Consume WCF Web Service using Objective-C on iPhone

Question

I am having a hard time consuming a very simple (Hello World) WCF web service in my iPhone app. From what I have read, you must manually create the request message then send it to the web service URL.

I was able to accomplish this on a .asmx web service, but not with a WCF service.

How do I know the correct format of the request SOAP message?

The web service I am trying to hit has a format of: http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:PORT/IService1/ (running locally in a VM)

I apologize for the lack of information, I am pretty lost.

Any and all help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

Thank to everyone that helped here. I ended up figuring it out and thought I would share my results. I know this is not a comprehensive solution, so shoot me a message or comment if you require more detail.

//Variables used
NSMutableData *webData;
NSMutableString *soapResults;
NSXMLParser *xmlParser;
BOOL recordResults;

//Web Service Call
NSString *soapMessage = [NSString stringWithFormat:
@"<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>\n"
"<SOAP-ENV:Envelope \n"
"xmlns:xsd=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema\" \n"
"xmlns:xsi=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance\" \n" 
"xmlns:SOAP-ENC=\"http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/\" \n"
"SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle=\"http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/\" \n"
"xmlns:SOAP-ENV=\"http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/\"> \n"
"<SOAP-ENV:Body> \n"
"<Login xmlns=\"http://tempuri.org/\"><username>JACKSON</username><password>PASSWORD</password>"
"</Login> \n"
"</SOAP-ENV:Body> \n"
"</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>"];

NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://172.16.0.142:8731/Service1/"];               
NSMutableURLRequest *theRequest = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url];             
NSString *msgLength = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", [soapMessage length]];          
[theRequest addValue: @"text/xml; charset=utf-8" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Type"];       
[theRequest addValue: @"http://tempuri.org/IService1/Login" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Soapaction"];
[theRequest addValue: msgLength forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Length"];
[theRequest setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];     
[theRequest setHTTPBody: [soapMessage dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
NSURLConnection *theConnection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:theRequest delegate:self];

if(theConnection) {
    webData = [[NSMutableData data] retain];
}
else {
    NSLog(@"theConnection is NULL");
}

//Implement the NSURL and XMLParser protocols
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark NSURLConnection methods

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didFailWithError:(NSError *)error

- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection

#pragma mark -
#pragma mark XMLParser methods

-(void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didStartElement:(NSString *)elementName 
 namespaceURI:(NSString *)namespaceURI 
qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName
   attributes:(NSDictionary *)attributeDict 

-(void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser foundCharacters:(NSString *)string

-(void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didEndElement:(NSString *)elementName 
 namespaceURI:(NSString *)namespaceURI 
qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName

Answer 2

Personally i would recommend adding a REST based endpoint for the WCF service. You can run it simultaneously with the SOAP and its a LOT easier to consume on the iPhone side.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd203052.aspx