Chapter 20: Web Services


Overview

You may have come across the term Web services before, though you may not be aware of what they are or how they fit into the way the Web operates — and will operate in the future. Suffice it to say that Web services provide the foundation of the new generation of Web applications. Whatever the client application is — whether it is a Windows application or an ASP.NET Web Forms application — and whatever system the client is running — whether it is Windows, Pocket Windows, or some other OS — they will regularly communicate over the Internet using a Web service. Web services are server-side programs that listen for messages from client applications and return specific information. This information may come from the Web service itself, from other components in the same domain, or from other Web services. While the whole of the Web service concept is evolving continuously, there are several different types of Web services that carry out different functions: some provide information specific to a particular industry such as manufacturing or healthcare; there are portal services that use services from different providers to offer information on a specific theme; there are services that are specific to single applications, and building block services that can be used by many different applications.

Web services give us the ability to combine, share, exchange, or plug in separate services from various vendors and developers to form entirely new services or custom applications created on the fly to meet the requirements of the client.

In this chapter, you look at:

  • Predecessors of Web services

  • What a Web service is

  • Protocols used for Web services

  • Creating an ASP.NET Web service

  • Testing the Web service

  • Building a client to use Web services

  • Calling the Web service asynchronously

  • Sending and receiving messages

This chapter will not go into the inner workings of Web services, especially the XML-based SOAP and WSDL formats, but you will get an overview of what these protocols are used for. After reading this chapter, you can start creating and consuming simple Web services with the help of Visual Studio.




Beginning Visual C# 2005
Beginning Visual C#supAND#174;/sup 2005
ISBN: B000N7ETVG
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 278

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