WCF WebInvoke POST message body

Question

[OperationContract]
[WebInvoke(UriTemplate = "s={s}", Method = "POST")]
string EchoWithPost(string s);

I'm trying to consume this method (WCF service) using a WebRequest:

WebRequest request1 = WebRequest.Create("http://MyIP/Host");
request1.Method = "POST";
request1.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
string postData1 = "s=TestString";

I don't want to pass the data (s=TestString) in the url, what I'm trying to do is passing the data in the message body.

Answer 1

First you need to change your service contract like this:

[OperationContract]
[WebInvoke(UriTemplate = "EchoWithPost", Method = "POST")]
string EchoWithPost(string s);

Notice how the UriTemplate is no longer expecting any variable value in the URL.

To invoke such an operation from a client:

// Set up request
string postData = @"""Hello World!""";
HttpWebRequest request = 
     (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://MyIP/Host/EchoWithPost");
request.Method = "POST";
request.ContentType = "text/json";
byte[] dataBytes = new ASCIIEncoding().GetBytes(postData);
request.ContentLength = dataBytes.Length;
using (Stream requestStream = request.GetRequestStream())
{
     requestStream.Write(dataBytes, 0, dataBytes.Length);
}

// Get and parse response
HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
string responseString = string.Empty;
using (var responseStream = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()))
{
     //responseData currently will be in XML format 
     //<string xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/">Hello World!</string>
     var responseData = responseStream.ReadToEnd();
     responseString = System.Xml.Linq.XDocument.Parse(responseData).Root.Value;
}

// display response - Hello World!
Console.WriteLine(responseString);
Console.ReadKey();