calling RESTful WCFservice method with object as parameter from java

Question

i have a RESTful WCF service and one of its methods use an Object as parameter

[WebInvoke(UriTemplate = "save", Method = "POST", RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml, ResponseFormat= WebMessageFormat.Xml), OperationContract]
        public SampleItem Create(SampleItem instance)
        {
            return new SampleItem() { Id = 1, StringValue = "saved" };
            // TODO: Add the new instance of SampleItem to the collection
            //throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

I am trying to call this method from my eclipse android project. i am using these lines of codes

DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
HttpPost post=new HttpPost("http://10.0.2.2:2768/Service1.svc/save");
ArrayList<NameValuePair> nvp= new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();

nvp.add(new BasicNameValuePair("Id", "1"));
nvp.add(new BasicNameValuePair("StringValue", "yolo"));

post.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nvp));
HttpResponse httpResponse = httpClient.execute(post);
HttpEntity httpEntity = httpResponse.getEntity();
String xml = EntityUtils.toString(httpEntity);

Every time i get this error Method not allowed. in the XML that is returned by the service method.

i have tried invoking it from the browser, but encountered the same error there.

please tell me what i am doing wrong and what i can do instead.

thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

note: other methods which do not use object as parameter are working fine.

EDIT: tried Fiddler2 with success. but stalled again.

i have tried invoking the method SampleItem Create(SampleItem instance) with the url http://localhost:2768/Service1.svc/save and it works. the method returns the object in XML format.

in fiddler i added the request body as <SampleItem xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/WcfRestService1" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"><Id>1</Id><StringValue>saved</StringValue></SampleItem>

but the problem is that i can not find any way to add this xml string to the HttpPost or HttpRequest as the requestbody eclipse android project.

note: passing the xml string as Header or UrlEncodedFormEntity did not work.

Answer 1

First, you should get the Web Service method working from the browser - I recommend using Fiddler2 - its easier to construct the request body with your object and also to set the request headers when doing a post. It will show you the response so should help with debugging. As for your code, I'm doing a POST to a WCF service and instead of doing

post.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nvp));

I'm simply doing:

HttpPost request = new HttpPost(url);

// Add headers.
for(NameValuePair h : headers)
{
     request.addHeader(h.getName(), h.getValue());
}

(I am using JSONObjects and I have RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json in my WebInvoke parameters.

Also, check your using the correct UriTemplate name in your url as they are case sensitive.

Answer 2

To call that WCF service you must build valid SOAP request and post it. It is better to use some SOAP protocol stack on Android - for example kSoap2.

Here is example of using kSoap2 to call WCF service. just add KSOAP2 lib in your project.for how we add KSOAP2 in Android project see this post

Answer 3

finally i have succeeded to send a json object over to my WCF Service here's my code

URI uri = new URI("http://esimsol.com/droidservice/pigeonlibrary.service1.svc/save");

JSONObject jo1 = new JSONObject();
jo1.put("Id", "4");
jo1.put("StringValue", "yollo");

HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) uri.toURL().openConnection();
conn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type","application/json; charset=utf-8");
conn.setRequestProperty("Accept", "application/json");
conn.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", "Pigeon");
conn.setChunkedStreamingMode(0);
conn.setDoInput(true);
conn.setDoOutput(true);
conn.setRequestMethod("POST");
conn.connect();

DataOutputStream out = new DataOutputStream(conn.getOutputStream());
out.write(jo1.toString().getBytes());
out.flush();

int code = conn.getResponseCode();
String message = conn.getResponseMessage();

InputStream in = conn.getInputStream();
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
String reply;

try {
int chr;
while ((chr = in.read()) != -1) {
sb.append((char) chr);
}
reply = sb.toString();
} finally {
in.close();
}

SampleItem SI = new SampleItem();
SI=new Gson().fromJson(reply, SampleItem.class);

Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), SI.getStringValue(),Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

conn.disconnect();

thanks to StackOverFlow. i had to combine a number of code snippets to achieve this.