Asp.Net MVC and Web Services

Question

I have an existing Asp.Net MVC Website and I would also like to provide a Web Service from the same domain.

What is the best way to approach creating a web service in this scenerio?

Do I add to this project or...?

Answer 1

You should be able to add an WebService file directly to the MVC project. Right click on solution and select add new item, then select the web category and att the bottom of the list there should be Web Service.

Just remember to check that the routes does not eat up the call to the webservice.

That way the webservice can get access to the same model classes as the MVC application.

Answer 2

You can add a web service to the project just as you do in regular ASP.NET web apps, however, MVC basically IS a web service. You could create a controller that handles all the requests that you want your web service to handle.

With the advent of MVC it is quite common to do applications that only ever load a view once, then use AJAX and client scripting almost the entire rest of the life of the application. Your AJAX calls just hit up action methods for their goods and then use the deliciousness that is JSON to parse the data and utilize it.

In my opinion designing a web service as a controller instead of using [WebMethods] is far simpler and a lot more fun!

Answer 3

First, the question is "what do we mean by web service?" This can mean anything from a MVC page that responds using XML, JSON or some other agreed upon format to full blown SOAP and WS-* encumbered nightmares.

Anyhow, perhaps the best place to start is the WCF restful services -- these play very nicely with MVC, including routing.

The cool kids are using openrasta .