Question

I understand that you cannot return a generic list in a standard .asmx webservice. However I believe you can return an array []. My problem is converting the list to an array. Can someone help?
I have a bunch of Business Object that already return a type List so I am not open to converting the original objects to Arrays…

Here is my WebMethod.

   [WebMethod]

    public Book[] GetBooksList()

    {

        List<Book> obj = new List<Book>();
        BookDA dataAccess = new BookDA();       

        obj = dataAccess.GetBooksAll().ToArray(); //error 1 here on conversion

    return obj; //error 2 here

    }  

Error I receive is 2 fold : Cannot implicitly convert type BookDTO.Book [] to GenericList

Cannot implicitly convert type GenericList to

Answer 1

Because you already declared that obj was a list, not an array. Try this instead:

[WebMethod]
public Book[] GetBooksList()
{
    BookDA dataAccess = new BookDA();

    List<Book> obj = dataAccess.GetBooksAll();

    return obj.ToArray();
}

Or better yet:

[WebMethod]
public Book[] GetBooksList()
{
    var dataAccess = new BookDA();

    var obj = dataAccess.GetBooksAll().ToArray();

    return obj;
}