Web services are application modules executed by a web server, allowing the exchange of data and execution of code in the context of the web server.

Web services allow an easy implementation for remote calls to available application modules. This allows an application to move its user interface from being coupled with the processing code towards the end-user’s machine.

More information can be found at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms950421.aspx

How do web services work?

The web services implemented in Content Studio supports, in addition to the usual soap protocol, also querystrings (http-method get) and post-data (http-method post). While the soap protocol uses the post method, the data format used is different and is as such handled by a different protocol handler.

Web services in Content Studio

Installing the web services support under Content Studio will make them available for all sites hosted under that instance of Content Studio.

Web services in Content Studio will be installed under /[admin-web]/webservices/ where they can be accessed with any capable client.

All web services are named after their backend class, replacing any dots with underscores. See table below for example of naming system in use.

Web services in Content Studio implements pseudo-overloading by changing the MessageName that identifies every method to a document unique identifier. This is done by taking the method name and appending a hash created from the method declaration. This can be ignored when using web services with Visual Studio since Visual Studio automaticly handles the the serialization over the soap protocol, and provides a proxy class with proper overloading and parameters.

Sessions in Content Studio

Many web services in Content Studio uses an SessionID of integer value to identify the current user. A SessionID can be aquired by calling the OpenSession(int ConnectionID) method on ContentStudio.Security.SessionManager (/[path]/ContentStudio_Security_SessionManager.asmx/OpenSession_E7DAF8BD?ConnectionID=#). For more documentation regarding how Content Studio uses sessions, see the Content Studio 5 API Documentation.

Implementing web services in Visual Studio 2005

1. Add a web reference

   Right click on the References node, and choose Add Web Reference.

   

2. Specify location of web service

   Write the location to the web service you want to use in the topmost address bar. For easy remembering; change your web reference name in the lower right textbox to the filename of the web service.

   

3. Verify web service

   Your solution explorer should now contain the web reference you just added.

   

4. Call a web service method

   Content Studio requires authentication before allowing access to any web services. This is done by the example code above by setting the Credentials property of your initialized web service instance to System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials. The web server will return a 401 Unauthorized if this isn’t done before executing any method on the web service instance.

   

   
   C#

   using System;
   
   namespace WebserviceTest
   {
     class Program
     {
       static void Main(string[] args)
       {
         ContentStudio_CSApplication.CSApplication csApplication
           = new ContentStudio_CSApplication.CSApplication();
         
         // Configure credentials.
         csApplication.Credentials =
           System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials;
         
         // Execute method SiteList() on web service.
         string siteList = csApplication.SiteList();
         
         Console.WriteLine(siteList);
         
         // Pause execution to provide user with time to read.
         Console.WriteLine("[Press enter to exit.]");
         Console.ReadLine();
       }
     }
   }

   VB.NET

   Imports System
   
   Namespace WebserviceTest
     Class Program
       Public Shared Sub Main(args() As String)
         Dim csApplication As New ContentStudio_CSApplication.CSApplication()
         
         ' Configure credentials.
         csApplication.Credentials = _
           System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials
         
         ' Execute method SiteList() on web service.
         Dim siteList As String = csApplication.SiteList()
         
         Console.WriteLine(siteList)
         
         ' Pause execution to provide user with time to read.
         Console.WriteLine("[Press enter to exit.]")
         Console.ReadLine()
       End Sub
     End Class
   End Namespace