Question

We would like to provide the ability for customers to enter in a web service, our application would inspect the service, provide them with the input parameters and type, the customer would the input parameters and our application would call that web service. I have found code examples which will dynamically inspect and invoke .asmx services, examples in 3.5 which rely on a shared interface, and examples in 4.0 using the new 4.0 assemblies.

What I am missing is a way to dynamically inspect a WCF service using .NET 3.5 without exchanging a shared interface. I have been able to determine the service name and method, but the value parameters are not coming through on the WSDL.

Here is my simple service:

    [OperationContract]
    string GetDataInt(int value);

    [OperationContract]
    string GetDataStringInt(int value, string stringValue);

      [OperationContract]
    string GetDataStringIntBool(int value, string stringValue, bool boolValue);

And here is what is coming through as parameters on the WSDL (for the parameters):

<wsdl:message name="IService1_GetDataInt_InputMessage">
<wsdl:part name="parameters" element="tns:GetDataInt"/>
</wsdl:message>
<wsdl:message name="IService1_GetDataInt_OutputMessage">
<wsdl:part name="parameters" element="tns:GetDataIntResponse"/>
</wsdl:message>
<wsdl:message name="IService1_GetDataStringInt_InputMessage">
<wsdl:part name="parameters" element="tns:GetDataStringInt"/>
</wsdl:message>
<wsdl:message name="IService1_GetDataStringInt_OutputMessage">
<wsdl:part name="parameters" element="tns:GetDataStringIntResponse"/>
</wsdl:message>

The parameter types are not coming through on the wsdl. Is there a way in .NET 3.5 to inspect a WCF service and invoke it?

Answer 1

Parameters are of course coming in WSDL but WSDL is not flatten (unless you are using WCFExtras which provide flattened WSDL). You must look for WSDL and XSD imports – those points to another files containing rest of WSDL related information.