Question

I was looking for a way to route http://www.example.com/WebService.asmx to http://www.example.com/service/ using only the ASP.NET 3.5 Routing framework without needing to configure the IIS server.

Until now I have done what most tutorials told me, added a reference to the routing assembly, configured stuff in the web.config, added this to the Global.asax:

protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    RouteCollection routes = RouteTable.Routes;

    routes.Add(
        "WebService",
        new Route("service/{*Action}", new WebServiceRouteHandler())
    );
}

…created this class:

public class WebServiceRouteHandler : IRouteHandler
{
    public IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext)
    {
        // What now?
    }
}

…and the problem is right there, I don’t know what to do. The tutorials and guides I’ve read use routing for pages, not webservices. Is this even possible?

Ps: The route handler is working, I can visit /service/ and it throws the NotImplementedException I left in the GetHttpHandler method.

Answer 1

Just thought I would round off this question with a bit more of a detailed solution based on the answer given by Markives that worked for me.

Firstly here is the route handler class which takes the virtual directory to your WebService as its constructor param.

public class WebServiceRouteHandler : IRouteHandler
{
    private string _VirtualPath;

    public WebServiceRouteHandler(string virtualPath)
    {
        _VirtualPath = virtualPath;
    }

    public IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext)
    {
        return new WebServiceHandlerFactory().GetHandler(HttpContext.Current, 
            "*", 
            _VirtualPath, 
            HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(_VirtualPath));
    }
}

and the actual usage of this class within the routey bit of Global.asax

routes.Add("SOAP",
    new Route("soap", new WebServiceRouteHandler("~/Services/SoapQuery.asmx")));