SOAP object over HTTP post in C# .NET

Question

I am trying to compose a SOAP message(including header) in C# .NET to send to a URL using HTTP post. The URL I want to send it to is not a web-service, it just receives SOAP messages to eventually extract information from it. Any ideas on how to do this?

Badr

Answer 1

First you need to create a valid XML. I use Linq to XML to achieve this, like follow:

XNamespace soapenv = "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/";
var document = new XDocument(
               new XDeclaration("1.0", "utf-8", String.Empty),
               new XElement(soapenv + "Envelope",
                   new XAttribute(XNamespace.Xmlns + "soapenv", soapenv),
                   new XElement(soapenv + "Header",
                       new XElement(soapenv + "AnyOptionalHeader",
                           new XAttribute("AnyOptionalAttribute", "false"),
                       )
                   ),
                   new XElement(soapenv + "Body",
                       new XElement(soapenv + "MyMethodName",
                            new XAttribute("AnyAttributeOrElement", "Whatever")
                       )
                   )
                );

Then I send it using (EDIT: added XDocument.ToString() down here.)

            var req = WebRequest.Create(uri);
            req.Timeout = 300000;  //timeout
            req.Method = "POST";
            req.ContentType = "text/xml;charset=UTF-8";

            using (var writer = new StreamWriter(req.GetRequestStream()))
            {
                writer.WriteLine(document.ToString());
                writer.Close();
            }

If I have to read some response, I do (this is followup of the above code):

            using (var rsp = req.GetResponse())
            {
                req.GetRequestStream().Close();
                if (rsp != null)
                {
                    using (var answerReader = 
                                new StreamReader(rsp.GetResponseStream()))
                    {
                        var readString = answerReader.ReadToEnd();
                        //do whatever you want with it
                    }
                }
            }

Inspan

You're right, there is an easier way to convert an XDocument to a string. It's the ToString() method. There is an overload that lets you specify whether you want the XML indented and formatted or not (defaults to formatted). – Shackelford

It allows you to define the life of an object, and thus automatically call it's dispose method when it leaves the block. – Citizen

Answer 2

your code above was missing a parenthesis and had an extra comma, i fixed it here:

XNamespace soapenv = "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"; 
var document = new XDocument( 
    new XDeclaration("1.0", "utf-8", String.Empty), 
    new XElement(soapenv + "Envelope", 
        new XAttribute(XNamespace.Xmlns + "soapenv", soapenv), 
        new XElement(soapenv + "Header", 
            new XElement(soapenv + "AnyOptionalHeader", 
                new XAttribute("AnyOptionalAttribute", "false")
            ) 
        ), 
        new XElement(soapenv + "Body", 
            new XElement(soapenv + "MyMethodName", 
                new XAttribute("AnyAttributeOrElement", "Whatever") 
            ) 
        ) 
    )
); 

Arborescent