Function Overloading in Web Services

Function Overloading in Web Services

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/webservices/OverloadingInWebService.aspx

By dheerajindian | 9 Oct 2008

How to perform function overloading in Web Services

Is your email address OK? You are signed up for our newsletters but your email address is either unconfirmed, or has not been reconfirmed in a long time. Please click here to have a confirmation email sent so we can confirm your email address and start sending you newsletters again. Alternatively, you can update your subscriptions .

• Download source - 11.13 KB

Introduction

The function overloading in Web Service is not as straightforward as in class. While trying to overload member function, we make two or more methods with the same name with different parameters. But this will not work in web services and will show runtime error because WSDL is not supported by the same method name.

Overloading Web Services

While trying to overload Web Methods in Web Services and after doing the build, it will work successfully. But when we try to run or consume, it will show an error message. We can show this using an example.

Collapse

namespace
 TestOverloadingWebService

{ 

    [WebService(Namespace = "
http://tempuri.org/"
, Description="
 <b> Function 

    overloading in Web Services </b>"
)] 

public
 class
 OverloadingInWebService : System.Web.Services.WebService 

{ 

    [WebMethod()] 

    public
 int
 Add(int
 a, int
 b) 

    { 

        return
 (a + b); 

    } 

    [WebMethod()] 

    public
 float
 Add(float
 a, float
 b) 

    { 

        return
 (a + b); 

    } 

} 

}

In the above example, we made one web service having class OverloadingInWebService . In the Web Service, we have added attribute Description , which is used to describe the web service purpose to client. In the above Web Service, we have two overloaded WebMethod s:

public
 int
 Add(int
 a, int
 b) 

and

public
 float
 Add(float
 a, float
 b)

While running this Web service, it will show the following runtime error.

Solution for the Above Error

The procedure to solve this problem is very easy. Start each method with a Web Method attribute. Add Description property to add a description of web method and MessageName property to change web method name.

[WebMethod(MessageName = "
<name>"
, Description = "
<description>"
)]

namespace
 TestOverloadingWebService 

{ 

    [WebService(Namespace = "
http://tempuri.org/"
, Description="
 <b> Function 

    overloading in Web Services </b>"
)] 

public
 class
 OverloadingInWebService : System.Web.Services.WebService 

{ 

    [WebMethod(MessageName = "
AddInt"
, Description = "
Add two integer 

        Value"
, EnableSession = true
)] 

    public
 int
 Add(int
 a, int
 b) 

    { 

        return
 (a + b); 

    } 

    [WebMethod(MessageName = "
AddFloat"
, Description = "
Add two Float  

        Value"
, EnableSession = true
)] 

    public
 float
 Add(float
 a, float
 b) 

    { 

        return
 (a + b); 

    } 

} 

}

Reason for the Above Error

The Overloading is supported by web services. But when WSDL (Web Service Description Language) is generated, it will not be able to make the difference between methods because WSDL does not deal on the base of parameters. By passing web methods –‘MessageName Property ’, it changes the method name in WSDL. See the WSDL given below, the operation name is Add but the input method name is AddInt as well as output method name is also same (AddInt ). The same will apply for Float also.

<
wsdl:operation
 name
="
Add"
>
 

            <
wsdl:documentation
 xmlns:wsdl
="
http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/"
>
Add 

            two integer Value<
/
wsdl:documentation
>
 

            <
wsdl:input
 name
="
AddInt"
 message
="
tns:AddIntSoapIn"
 /
>
 

            <
wsdl:output
 name
="
AddInt"
 message
="
tns:AddIntSoapOut"
 /
>
 

<
/
wsdl:operation
>
 

<
wsdl:operation
 name
="
Add"
>
 

            <
wsdl:documentation
 xmlns:wsdl
="
http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/"
>
Add     

            two Float Value<
/
wsdl:documentation
>
 

            <
wsdl:input
 name
="
AddFloat"
 message
="
tns:AddFloatSoapIn"
 /
>
 

            <
wsdl:output
 name
="
AddFloat"
 message
="
tns:AddFloatSoapOut"
 /
>
 

<
/
wsdl:operation
>

History

• 9^th October, 2008: Initial post

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

About the Author