Vb.net – View underlying SOAP message using vb.net

servicesoapvb.net

I have a VB.NET web service that calls a third party web service. How can I view the SOAP message generated by .NET before it is sent to the third party web service and how can I see the SOAP response before it is serialized by .NET.

When creating a standalone EXE, I see the Reference.vb file that is automatically generated, but don't see a similar file when my project is a web service. I have found lots of C# code to do this, but none in VB.NET.

Edit – Fiddler and TCP loggers are great, but will not work for my purposes. I need to be able to access the raw SOAP messages from within the application so I can log them or modify them. I need to do more than just see the messages going back and forth.

Best Answer

You can use fiddler or a tcp sniffer to filter and identify all outgoing and incoming traffic on your host.

This is if you want to see the xml request and response.

Simple explanation about SOAP and REST

SOAP - "Simple Object Access Protocol"

SOAP is a method of transferring messages, or small amounts of information, over the Internet. SOAP messages are formatted in XML and are typically sent using HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol).

Rest - Representational state transfer

Rest is a simple way of sending and receiving data between client and server and it doesn't have very many standards defined. You can send and receive data as JSON, XML or even plain text. It's light weighted compared to SOAP.

enter image description here

Getting RAW Soap Data from a Web Reference Client running in ASP.net

I made following changes in web.config to get the SOAP (Request/Response) Envelope. This will output all of the raw SOAP information to the file trace.log.

<system.diagnostics>
  <trace autoflush="true"/>
  <sources>
    <source name="System.Net" maxdatasize="1024">
      <listeners>
        <add name="TraceFile"/>
      </listeners>
    </source>
    <source name="System.Net.Sockets" maxdatasize="1024">
      <listeners>
        <add name="TraceFile"/>
      </listeners>
    </source>
  </sources>
  <sharedListeners>
    <add name="TraceFile" type="System.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener"
      initializeData="trace.log"/>
  </sharedListeners>
  <switches>
    <add name="System.Net" value="Verbose"/>
    <add name="System.Net.Sockets" value="Verbose"/>
  </switches>
</system.diagnostics>

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Rest – Representational state transfer (REST) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)

Simple explanation about SOAP and REST

Getting RAW Soap Data from a Web Reference Client running in ASP.net

Related Topic