Question

I was recently asked to connect to a third party web service (*.asmx). I created a new ASP.NET website, and used the wizard to create the Service reference. When I went to call the service, the code complained that it did not know which endpoint to use.

I looked in the Web.config, and sure enough, the wizard created TWO bindings, and thus two end-points. By adding either endpoint to the service call, everything works perfectly.

My question then is simply meant to help me understand why I have two bindings, and if there is some reason that I should use one over the other? Or should I remove one, and if so, which?

The bindings look totally different to me, and I am assuming that two different protocols are being used (but they are both labeled SOAP, so..). I am very “front end focused” and don’t get involved in the back end mechanics very often, which is why I am asking. I’ll post the bindings below.

    <bindings>
  <basicHttpBinding>
    <binding name="ServiceSoap" closeTimeout="00:01:00"
      openTimeout="00:01:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:01:00"
      allowCookies="false" bypassProxyOnLocal="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
      maxBufferSize="65536" maxBufferPoolSize="524288" maxReceivedMessageSize="65536"
      messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8" transferMode="Buffered"
      useDefaultWebProxy="true">
      <readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="8192" maxArrayLength="16384"
        maxBytesPerRead="4096" maxNameTableCharCount="16384" />
      <security mode="None">
        <transport clientCredentialType="None" proxyCredentialType="None"
          realm="" />
        <message clientCredentialType="UserName" algorithmSuite="Default" />
      </security>
    </binding>
  </basicHttpBinding>
  <customBinding>
    <binding name="ServiceSoap12">
      <textMessageEncoding maxReadPoolSize="64" maxWritePoolSize="16"
        messageVersion="Soap12" writeEncoding="utf-8">
        <readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="8192" maxArrayLength="16384"
          maxBytesPerRead="4096" maxNameTableCharCount="16384" />
      </textMessageEncoding>
      <httpTransport manualAddressing="false" maxBufferPoolSize="524288"
        maxReceivedMessageSize="65536" allowCookies="false" authenticationScheme="Anonymous"
        bypassProxyOnLocal="false" decompressionEnabled="true" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
        keepAliveEnabled="true" maxBufferSize="65536" proxyAuthenticationScheme="Anonymous"
        realm="" transferMode="Buffered" unsafeConnectionNtlmAuthentication="false"
        useDefaultWebProxy="true" />
    </binding>
  </customBinding>
</bindings>
<client>
  <endpoint address="http://someURL.asmx" binding="basicHttpBinding"
    bindingConfiguration="ServiceSoap" contract="ServiceReference.ServiceSoap"
    name="ServiceSoap" />
  <endpoint address="http://someURL.asmx" binding="customBinding"
    bindingConfiguration="ServiceSoap12" contract="ServiceReference.ServiceSoap"
    name="ServiceSoap12" />
</client>

Answer 1

I believe the service offers both SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2. You will need to specify the client configuration to use in the constructor of the service reference class:

var client = new MyClient("ServiceSoap12");