Adding service reference for Asp.Net webservice

Question

EDIT:
I'm based on some comments that have been deleted, I guess I need to add a service reference and create a instance of the webservice object in the client application to pass the dataset. I haven't been able to add the service reference. When the service runs, it gives a 403 forbidden error, and has done so since I first created the project. I thought this was fine because the apicontroller methods can still be accessed with an HTTP GET, but I have no way of actually sending objects to the service, and can't create the service reference. The service and the client are in separate projects. At this point even a link to a decent tutorial would help. I've found a ton of stuff for creating a full site with a few functions accessed in jquery, and plenty of stuff that includes how to send a post in C#, but nothing that combines both sides. I saw this question asking a how to do a similar thing. Is there any difference in the client side code I have in c# and the javascript in the question?

EDIT2: I tried using a memory stream to look at the request content to see if the entire dataset was being transferred. Its only picking up 4000 or so bytes out of 350000 being transferred. I assume this is why the dataset isn't availalbe in teh webservice parameter. but I'm not sure how to continue.

Original:

I'm building a webservice to handle the database calls for my client application. This isn't publicly facing, so I'm fine with passing a dataset instead of a custom model. Heres the client code:

public static void TestSendToDatabase(DataSet Products)
{
        string xml = ToXML(Products);
        byte[] bytes;
        bytes = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(xml);

        StringBuilder urlBuilder = new StringBuilder(string.Format("{0}{1}", BaseUrl, "WalmartProducts/Update"));
        string url = urlBuilder.ToString();

        HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
        request.Accept = "application/xml";
        request.Method = "POST";
        request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
        request.ContentLength = bytes.Length;

        Stream requestStream = request.GetRequestStream();
        requestStream.Write(bytes,0,bytes.Length);

        HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();

And the service code:

public class WalmartProductsController : ApiController
{
    [HttpPost]
    [ActionName("Update")]
    public object UpdateWalmartProducts([FromBody] byte[] bytes)
    {
        string xml = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(bytes);
        DataSet productsFromClient = LoadFromXMLString(xml);
        DataUpdater.UpdateWalmartData(productsFromClient.Tables[0]);
        return DataUpdater.GetProducts();
    }

The byte array is empty in the web service. I'm sure that I'm mixing methods that shouldn't be mixed, but I've gone through at least thirty articles trying to resolve this, and it feels like each one has a completely different method. The webservice is currently returning the dataset in an xml format, so I would prefer to stick with xml over json.

Answer 1

This is not a complete answer, but perhaps it is a starting point. .NET supports two main techniques for writing Web Services. The first is an older technique using .asmx files. This approach is generally called the SOAP approach, and Visual Studio generates signatures of your methods in a .wsdl file. Because the signatures are exposed, you can then ask Visual Studio to create a Web Reference file for you. This web reference exposes all the Web Services as simple classes and methods, hiding all the complexity of the communication across the web service. Any object that can be serialized, including the DataSet object, can be included as a parameter to these web methods, and .NET will take care of serializing and deserializing these objects as they pass across the HTTP boundary. I believe that MS then encapsulated a number of different communication technologies inside of a product they called WCF, which was supposed to allow you to use configuration to choose whether you wanted to use HTTP for communication or TCP/IP.

The downside to this approach is that if you use any MS class in your API's, you have effectively tied your product to MS, and it is then very difficult for any non-MS client to communicate with your web service. The DataSet object is an extremely complicated one, and I'm under the opinion that it would be quite impractical to attempt to write your own serialization/deserialization methods to send a DataSet .

The other Web Service approach that is gaining popularity is using REST API's. Recently, MS added support for these, and the ApiController is one of the starting points. If you google "ASP.NET REST API Tutorial" you should find all kinds of examples. However, with this approach I would discourage you from using the DataSet class. I've had some success with classes such as a Dictionary, provided the object classes you put into the dictionary all resolve down to fairly simple components. Attempting to use a complex MS class like DataSet is likely to lead to a lot of frustration, and will yield a Web Service that very few clients can use.