Chapter 17: Web Services

Overview

A web service is a software component that you can call over the Web, and one of the key features of .NET is the ability to easily create Web services.

Companies can create Web services to allow customer interaction. For example, a shipping company might create a Web service that allows other companies to pass an XML document across the Web containing a list of items that need to be shipped. The shipping company could accept that file and schedule a pickup for those items, returning an XML document from the Web service containing a list of tracking numbers for each item to be shipped.

Because Web services return and accept data in the form of XML documents, Web services are truly platform independent. For example, you could have a Web service written in C# communicate with another Web service written in Java, passing data in the form of XML documents.

In this chapter, you'll see how to create a Web service using VS .NET and use it in a Windows application. You'll also see how to register a Web service so that other organizations can use your service. For comprehensive coverage of Web services, see .NET Web Services Solutions by Kris Jamsa (Sybex, 2003).

Featured in this chapter:

• Creating a Web service

• Viewing a WSDL file and testing a Web service

• Using a Web service

• Registering a Web service