How to create SOAP/XML client from WSDL in console cron job app C# vs2012

Question

I have a lot of SOAP/XML and REST/JSON experience in Java and C++, but am pretty much a newbie in .NET. I have to create a SOAP client from a WSDL in C# in VS 2012. The app is not a web-based app, but a console app that will be run as a cron job every 24 hours. It has to query a Web Service for a token, do a client database lookup, and then use the token to update a list of client id's on the Web Service with any new ones - two calls only.

The company has a tester where I can type in either SOAP message (envelope and contents) by hand, click the run button, and a window shows the correct response in its SOAP envelope. My only confusion would seem to be endpoint-related. A WSDL-generated client should take care of everything.

I don't know much about C# (5), the .NET framework (4.5.x), or the newer .NET versions of VS (I've been using Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, and even jEdit for the past decade and more).

I've seen a dozen different "solutions" to this problem, ranging from WSDL.EXE and SiteUtil.Exe through adding the WSDL file as a (web?) reference or using one of the NuGet addons. The problem is that every solution I've found appears to asssume the client app is built on one of the web templates. I have to do this as a background .exe in plain C# without any web-based support or interaction in my app.

Any suggestions on the best (hopefully simplest) way to generate client source code?

Answer 1

You are not alone in being confused. You have to realize classic SOAP (asmx/wsdl) is considered an "outdated" technology (by Microsoft), so these days it hidden away in the toolset in favor of newer technologies. The most basic approach is to add it as a Reference from the solution explorer within Visual Studio itself. Here is a step-by-step:

1. Create a console application
2. In the solution explorer, right-click the References node and choose Add Service Reference
3. Ignore most of the dialog that comes up, and go straight for Advanced:
4. From the bottom of the Service Reference Setttings, choose Add Web Reference...
5. Now fill in the location of your ASMX, hit the little arrow, wait a bit for the tooling to discover the service, then hit Add Reference
6. This will add a Web Reference to your project that you can then use to access the methods of the webservice.

[Edit] (to answer your question)

If you have a .WSDL file on disk, you simply enter the file location on disk in the URL box of the Add Web Reference dialog:

In that case, the generated service has a default namespace of WebReference (unless you change it, of course), and you'll most likely want to explicitly set the URL:

var service = new WebReference.GlobalWeather {Url = "http://www.webservicex.net/globalweather.asmx"};
var weather = service.GetWeather("Amsterdam", "Netherlands");
Console.WriteLine(weather);