Question

I’m using JavaScript to communicate to a WCF service via XML (I can’t use JSON). This has been working well so far for WCF methods which expose arguments of “primitive” data types, but now I need to call a WCF method which accepts an array. I’ve been unable to figure out how to tweak my XML properly.

For example, a WCF method with two parameters accepts:

<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <s:Body>
    <MySimpleMethod xmlns="http://tempuri.org/">
      <parameter1>value</parameter1>
      <parameter2>someOtherValue</parameter2>
    </MySimpleMethod>
  </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>

I thought I might be able to pass an array (of strings in this case) by doing the following:

<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <s:Body>
    <MyMethodWithAnArrayParameter xmlns="http://tempuri.org/">
      <arrayParameterName>value1</arrayParameterName>
      <arrayParameterName>value2</arrayParameterName>
    </MyMethodWithAnArrayParameter>
  </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>

But this hasn’t worked. If anyone has any insight I’d be very appreciative.

Thanks.

EDIT:

Making progress. Darin’s answer works for primitive data types, but I’m unable to pass something more complex, say an array of the following class:

public class Address 
{
    public String Number {get; set;};
    public String City {get; set;};
    public String State {get; set;};
}

I’ve tried this:

<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <s:Body>
    <TestMethod xmlns="http://tempuri.org/">
      <args xmlns:a="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/Arrays" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
        <a:Address>
          <Number>31</Number>
          <City>Houston</City>
          <State>Texas</State>
        </a:Address>
      </args>
    </TestMethod>
  </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>

The method gets called (I can verify this in a debugger), but the array that it gets passed is empty.

Answer 1

Assuming the following method signature exposed over a basicHttpBinding:

[OperationContract]
string MyMethodWithAnArrayParameter(string[] values, string parameter2);

you could invoke like this:

<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <s:Body>
        <MyMethodWithAnArrayParameter xmlns="http://tempuri.org/">
            <values xmlns:a="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/Arrays" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
                <a:string>value1</a:string>
                <a:string>value2</a:string>
            </values>
            <parameter2>param2</parameter2>
        </MyMethodWithAnArrayParameter>
    </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>

---

UPDATE:

Assuming the following operation contract:

[OperationContract]
string TestMethod(Address[] args);

The request could look like this

<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <s:Body>
        <TestMethod xmlns="http://tempuri.org/">
            <args xmlns:a="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/WcfService1" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
                <a:Address>
                    <a:City>Houston</a:City>
                    <a:Number>31</a:Number>
                    <a:State>Texas</a:State>
                </a:Address>
                <a:Address>
                    <a:City>Washington</a:City>
                    <a:Number>21</a:Number>
                    <a:State>DC</a:State>
                </a:Address>
            </args>
        </TestMethod>
    </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>