R – Web reference behavior in an ASP.NET web site project

asp.netweb services

On my local workstation, I have a Visual Studio studio that contains a .NET 3.5 C# class library project and an .NET 3.5 ASP.NET web site project.

I created a web reference (example http://prod.webservices/myservice/default.asmx) in the C# class library using the "Add Web Reference" module. It created an app.config with the following section:

<applicationSettings>
    <MyCompany.MyApp.Data.Properties.Settings>
        <setting name="MyCompany_MyApp_Data_MyWebService" serializeAs="String">
            <value>http://prod.webservices/myservice/default.asmx</value>
        </setting>
    </MyCompany.MyApp.Data.Properties.Settings>
</applicationSettings>

In my ASP.NET web propject I also created a reference to the same web service using the "Add Web Reference" feature. It added the following item to the appSettings of my web.config file:

<add key="MyWebService.default" value="http://prod.webservices/myservice/default.asmx" />

I also created a reference to the class library file in the ASP.NET web site project. When I deployed my ASP.NET web site to our development server, I only move the web.config file not the app.config file for the class library, and all reference to the web service work.

When I try to modify the web.config file to change the web reference to http://dev.webservices/myservice/default.asmx, it still uses the prod.webservice reference URL.

What do I have to do to get the development environment to use http://dev.webservice web service?

Best Answer

Explicitly assign the URL (by reading it from the config) after creating the proxy in your code.

Related Solutions

.net – ASP.NET Web Site or ASP.NET Web Application

Website:

The Web Site project is compiled on the fly. You end up with a lot more DLL files, which can be a pain. It also gives problems when you have pages or controls in one directory that need to reference pages and controls in another directory since the other directory may not be compiled into the code yet. Another problem can be in publishing.

If Visual Studio isn't told to re-use the same names constantly, it will come up with new names for the DLL files generated by pages all the time. That can lead to having several close copies of DLL files containing the same class name, which will generate plenty of errors. The Web Site project was introduced with Visual Studio 2005, but it has turned out not to be popular.

Web Application:

The Web Application Project was created as an add-in and now exists as part of SP 1 for Visual Studio 2005. The main differences are the Web Application Project was designed to work similarly to the Web projects that shipped with Visual Studio 2003. It will compile the application into a single DLL file at build time. To update the project, it must be recompiled and the DLL file published for changes to occur.

Another nice feature of the Web Application project is it's much easier to exclude files from the project view. In the Web Site project, each file that you exclude is renamed with an excluded keyword in the filename. In the Web Application Project, the project just keeps track of which files to include/exclude from the project view without renaming them, making things much tidier.

The article ASP.NET 2.0 - Web Site vs Web Application project also gives reasons on why to use one and not the other. Here is an excerpt of it:

You need to migrate large Visual Studio .NET 2003 applications to VS 2005? use the Web Application project.

You want to open and edit any directory as a Web project without creating a project file? use Web Site project.

You need to add pre-build and post-build steps during compilation? use Web Application project.

You need to build a Web application using multiple Web projects? use the Web Application project.

You want to generate one assembly for each page? use the Web Site project.

You prefer dynamic compilation and working on pages without building entire site on each page view? use Web Site project.

You prefer single-page code model to code-behind model? use Web Site project.

Web Application Projects versus Web Site Projects (MSDN) explains the differences between the web site and web application projects. Also, it discusses the configuration to be made in Visual Studio.

Enable ASP.NET ASMX web service for HTTP POST / GET requests

Try to declare UseHttpGet over your method.

[ScriptMethod(UseHttpGet = true)]
public string HelloWorld()
{
    return "Hello World";
}

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