Question

I am creating the following JSON object

 $("#btnSubmit").click(function () {
     var poll = { 'q': $('#txtQuestion').val(), 'a': [] };

     for (i = 1; i < counter; i++) {
         var a = $('#txtAnswer_' + i).val();
         poll.a.push(a);
     }


                  $.ajax({
                        type: 'POST',
                        url: "../_ws/Polls.asmx",
                        data: JSON.stringify(poll),
                        contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
                        dataType: 'json'

                  });



 });

basically, this retreives a question textbox’s value and answers textboxes (created on the fly) of a poll. The result is a ‘poll’ object.

I want to send this object to a webservice as seen above. No problems up until here. My question is how do I retreive this json object and process it in a function in my web service?

<WebMethod()> _
<ScriptMethod()>
Public Function AddPoll(**??? as ???**) As String

End Function

I would be grateful if anyone could help.

Answer 1

If I understand correctly, poll will end up looking like this?

{ q: 'Question text', a: [ 'Answer 1', 'Answer 2', 'Answer 3' ] }

If so, a simple method declaration you could use would be something like:

Public Function AddPoll(q as String, a as List<string>)

If you wanted something more precise, you could build up your own set of matching type:

public class PollDTO {
  public string q { get; set; }
  public List<string> a { get; set; }
}

<WebMethod()>
Public Function AddPoll(pollData as PollDTO)

You’d need to also change your jQuery data parameter to group that data under the single variable also:

data: JSON.stringify({ pollData: poll })

More on that here: http://encosia.com/using-complex-types-to-make-calling-services-less-complex/