Question

I am trying to access a REST web service but get an error HTTP 500. There must be something I am not doing correct but couldn’t find out. It is a publicly available service, otherwise I would have gotten a 403 error.

Here is my code:
(url is a string containing the web service URL, param is a string containing the parameters.)

        string url = @"http://crimemapping.edmontonpolice.ca/DataProvider.asmx/getOccurrenceInfo";
        string param = "{\"method\":\"send\",\"params\":[\"neighbourhoodID\":\"2\",\"crimeTypes\":\"Assault\",\"strStartDate\":\"2011,12,02\",\"strEndDate\":\"2012,03,01\"]}";
        // Reassigning param to increase readability.
        param = @"{""method"":""send"",""params"":[""neighbourhoodID"":""2"",""crimeTypes"":""Assault;Sexual Assaults;Break and Enter;Theft From Vehicle;Homicide;Theft Of Vehicle;Robbery;Theft Over $5000"",""strStartDate"":""2012,02,01"",""strEndDate"":""2012,03,01""]}";

        string response;
        WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(url);
        request.Method = "POST"; //REST based-services using Post method
        request.ContentType = "application/json"; //tells request the content typs is JSON
        request.ContentLength = param.Length;

        StreamWriter requestWriter = new StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream(), System.Text.Encoding.ASCII);
        requestWriter.Write(param);
        requestWriter.Close();

        StreamReader responseReader = new StreamReader(request.GetResponse().GetResponseStream());
        response = responseReader.ReadToEnd();
        responseReader.Close();

Answer 1

What I couldn’t figure out in the beginning was that the JSON request cannot be made by any IP. It checks the IP before proceeding. The error I was getting was way off, so didn’t help much.

Thanks all.