Http Post Format for WCF Restful Service

Question

Hey, super newbie question. Consider the following WCF function:

[ServiceContract]
[AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)]
[ServiceBehavior(InstanceContextMode = InstanceContextMode.PerCall)]
public class Service1
{
     private static NLog.Logger logger = NLog.LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger();

     [WebInvoke(UriTemplate = "", 
                Method = "POST", 
                ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
                RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
                BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare) ]
     public SomeObject DoPost(string someText)
     {
          ...
          return someObject;

In fiddler what would my request headers and body look like?

Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

I've slightly changed your WCF service to have a better example and written a sample test program (see below).

The first test executes a GET request for the URL http://localhost:57211/Service1.svc/getcar/1. The 1 at the end is a parameter. The port number may be different in your case. The result is:

{"ID":1,"Make":"Porsche"}

The second test executes a POST request by sending the same data (except Ferrari for Porsche) to the URL http://localhost:57211/Service1.svc/updatecar/1. The result is:

{"ID":1,"Make":"Ferrari"}

This request has both a parameter in the URL (the 1) plus the request data (a JSON structure) as a second parameter, transmitted as the request body.

With a network debugger, it would look like this (simplified):

POST /Service1.svc/updatecar/1 HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost:57211
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 25

{"ID":1,"Make":"Ferrari"}

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: ASP.NET Development Server/10.0.0.0
Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2010 19:16:19 GMT
Content-Length: 25
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

{"ID":1,"Make":"Ferrari"}

I hope that helps.

TestService.cs:

class TestService
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://localhost:57211/Service1.svc/getcar/1");
        WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();
        string result = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()).ReadToEnd();
        Console.WriteLine(result);

        string requestData = "{\"ID\":1,\"Make\":\"Ferrari\"}";
        byte[] data = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(requestData);
        request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://localhost:57211/Service1.svc/updatecar/1");
        request.Method = "POST";
        request.ContentType = "application/json";
        Stream dataStream = request.GetRequestStream();
        dataStream.Write(data, 0, data.Length);
        dataStream.Close();

        response = request.GetResponse();
        result = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()).ReadToEnd();
        Console.WriteLine(result);
    }
}

IService.cs:

[ServiceContract]
public interface IService1
{
    [OperationContract]
    [WebGet(ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
        BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare,
        UriTemplate = "/getcar/{id}")]
    Car GetCar(string id);

    [OperationContract]
    [WebInvoke(RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
        ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
        BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare,
        UriTemplate = "/updatecar/{id}")]
    Car UpdateCar(string id, Car car);
}


[DataContract]
public class Car
{
    [DataMember]
    public int ID { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public string Make { get; set; }
}

Service.svc:

public class Service1 : IService1
{
    public Car GetCar(string id)
    {
        return new Car { ID = int.Parse(id), Make = "Porsche" };
    }


    public Car UpdateCar(string f, Car car)
    {
        return car;
    }
}

Service1.svc (Markup):

<%@ ServiceHost Language="C#" Debug="true" Service="JSONService.Service1" CodeBehind="Service1.svc.cs" Factory="System.ServiceModel.Activation.WebServiceHostFactory" %>

Answer 2

json is nothing but a string which can be easily used by ajax or java script. for other languages like c# u can custimize this string into custom class by just writing a simple logic.and by default restfull wcf deserilizad the data into json