Protocols

When you create an ASP.NET Web service, it automatically supports clients using the SOAP, HTTP GET, and HTTP POST protocols to invoke Web service methods . In HTTP GET the data is sent in a query string (name/value pairs) that is appended to the URL. In HTTP POST the data is not appended to the query string as in HTTP GET, but instead name /value pairs are written to a separate line sent with the HTTP header, and the data is not directly visible to the outside world.

The datatypes supported by HTTP GET and HTTP POST are string (Int16, Int32, Int64, Boolean, Single, Double, Decimal, DateTime, etc.), enumerations, and simple arrays. You cannot use HTTP GET and HTTP POST to represent some complex datatypes. However, SOAP supports a richer set of datatypes, such as object instances, ADO.NET datasets, XML nodes, and complex arrays.