Question

I’m trying to return code like this (can be found here):

{"hotspots": [{
  "id": "test_1",
    "anchor": { "geolocation": { "lat": 52.3729, "lon": 4.93 } },  
    "text": {
    "title": "The Layar Office", 
    "description": "The Location of the Layar Office", 
    "footnote": "Powered by Layar" },
  "imageURL": "http:\/\/custom.layar.nl\/layarimage.jpeg",
 }], 
 "layer": "snowy4",
 "errorString": "ok", 
 "errorCode": 0
} 

My current webservice code is as follows:

******************RestServiceImpl.vb

Imports System.ServiceModel
Imports System.ServiceModel.Web
Imports System.IO
Imports System.ServiceModel.Activation
Imports System.Web.Script.Serialization
Imports System.Collections.Generic

Namespace RestService

Public Class Employee
    Public Property Id() As String
        Get
            Return m_Id
        End Get
        Set(value As String)
            m_Id = Value
        End Set
    End Property
    Private m_Id As String
    Public Property FirstName() As String
        Get
            Return m_FirstName
        End Get
        Set(value As String)
            m_FirstName = Value
        End Set
    End Property
    Private m_FirstName As String
    Public Property LastName() As String
        Get
            Return m_LastName
        End Get
        Set(value As String)
            m_LastName = Value
        End Set
    End Property
    Private m_LastName As String
End Class

<AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode:=AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)> _
Public Class RestServiceImpl
    Implements IRestServiceImpl

    Public Function JSONData(ByVal lat As String, ByVal lng As String, ByVal d As String, ByVal cat As String) As List(Of Employee) Implements IRestServiceImpl.JSONData
        Dim json As New JavaScriptSerializer()
        Dim l As New List(Of Employee)

        Dim e As Employee
        For i As Integer = 0 To 10
            e = New Employee
            e.Id = i.ToString
            e.FirstName = i.ToString + "firstname"
            e.LastName = i.ToString + " lastname"
            l.Add(e)
        Next i
        Return l
    End Function

End Class
End Namespace



******************IRestServiceImpl.vb

Imports System.ServiceModel
Imports System.ServiceModel.Web
Imports System.IO
Imports System.ServiceModel.Activation
Imports System.Collections.Generic

Namespace RestService
<ServiceContract()> _
Public Interface IRestServiceImpl
    <OperationContract()> _
    <WebInvoke(Method:="GET", ResponseFormat:=WebMessageFormat.Json, BodyStyle:=WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare, UriTemplate:="api/objects/json/?lat={lat}&lon={lon}&radius={radius}&cat={cat}")> _
    Function JSONData(ByVal lat As String, ByVal lon As String, ByVal radius As String, ByVal cat As String) As List(Of Employee)
End Interface

End Namespace

This returns:

[{“FirstName”:”0firstname”,”Id”:”0″,”LastName”:”0 lastname”},{“FirstName”:”1firstname”,”Id”:”1″,”LastName”:”1 lastname”},{“FirstName”:”2firstname”,”Id”:”2″,”LastName”:”2 lastname”},{“FirstName”:”3firstname”,”Id”:”3″,”LastName”:”3 lastname”},{“FirstName”:”4firstname”,”Id”:”4″,”LastName”:”4 lastname”},{“FirstName”:”5firstname”,”Id”:”5″,”LastName”:”5 lastname”},{“FirstName”:”6firstname”,”Id”:”6″,”LastName”:”6 lastname”},{“FirstName”:”7firstname”,”Id”:”7″,”LastName”:”7 lastname”},{“FirstName”:”8firstname”,”Id”:”8″,”LastName”:”8 lastname”},{“FirstName”:”9firstname”,”Id”:”9″,”LastName”:”9 lastname”},{“FirstName”:”10firstname”,”Id”:”10″,”LastName”:”10 lastname”}]

But as you can see the required response structure from layer is more complex than my Employee class. How would I be able to return code like that? What should I do in my class definition?

Oh, and I DON’T want to use WCF!

Answer 1

Looking at one of your response objects you will need to return something like

Public Class Hotspots
        public int id { get; set; }
        public Anchor anchor { get; set; }
        public Text text { get; set; }
        public string imageURL { get; set; }
        ....
End Class

Note that Anchor and Text are objects as well.

I would also recommend wrapping these objects to a response object unless you have different methods returning them separately.