Question

I need to return an array of string from MyMethod at codebehind. But do I parse it on aspx page using javascript?

[WebMethod]
public static string[] MyMethod(){
   return new[] {"fdsf", "gfdgdfgf"};
}

..........
function myFunction() {
            $.ajax({ ......
                    success: function (msg) {
                                //how do I parse msg?
                                }
            });
        };

Answer 1

First, make sure you’ve tagged your class with [ScriptService] to allow it to be called through AJAX. Something like:

[ScriptService] //<-- Important
public class WebService : System.Web.Services.WebService
{
   [ScriptMethod] //<-- WebMethod is fine here too
   public string[] MyMethod()
   {
      return new[] {"fdsf", "gfdgdfgf"};
   }
}

You can then read the result with jQuery directly, as there’s no need to parse anything:

$(document).ready(function() {
  $.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: "WebService.asmx/MyMethod",
    data: "{}",
    contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
    dataType: "json",
    success: function(msg) {
      // msg.d will be your array with 2 strings
    }
  });
});

Another approach is to just include a reference to:

<script src="WebService.asmx/js" type="text/javascript"></script>

This will generate proxy classes to allow you to call web methods directly. For example:

WebService.MyMethod(onComplete, onError);

The onComplete function will receive a single parameter with the results of the web service call, in your case a Javascript array with 2 strings. In my opinion, this is an easier solution than using jQuery and worrying about the URL and HTTP payload.