REST from asp.net 2.0

Question

I just built a asp.net 2.0 web site. Now I need add REST web service so I can communicate with another web application. I\'ve worked with 2 SOAP web service project before,

Answer 1

REST, or RESTFUL Adding this to the System.Web in web.config will enable http get, and put.. aka REST-Like... but not full rest.

<System.Web>
  <webServices>
            <protocols>
                <add name="HttpSoap"/>
                <add name="HttpPost"/>
                <add name="HttpGet"/>
            </protocols>
        </webServices>
</System.Web>

Answer 2

If you want a framework built with REST in mind, you should have a look at OpenRasta...

http://openrasta.org/

Answer 3

I'm not sure about a REST solution for 2.0. So I think WCF is going to be the way you'll have to go with this one. MSDN has a long introduction to it.

My personal philosophy is that if a technology is still in beta then I would rather not use it for something that will potentially be a production application so I would start with WCF since it was introduced in the 3.0 version of the framework.

3.0 and 3.5 is actually an update to the libraries, but the CLR is still 2.0 so if the libraries you're using are not deprecated or changed in the new frameworks it should be okay.

Answer 4

Take a look at this CodeProject for a starting point. It seems somewhat... hacky. Modernizing to WCF would be cleaner.

Answer 5

You could look at using ASP.NET MVC as a RESTful web services platform. WCF is probably the way to go in the long run, but MVC should easily handle it. Your actions would just need to be set up to return JSON or XML, depending on how you want to serialize it. MVC offers both a JsonResult and fully customizable ContentResult -- i.e., you serialize your response to a string property on the result and set it's type and encoding.

NOTE: MVC does require 3.5 SP1 so it's not going to be a 2.0 solution. If you require 2.0, you'll need to look elsewhere.

Answer 6

Use WCF REST.

You can use it today. The WCF REST library is ready to go, usable in production.

The WCF Starter Kit (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/cc950529.aspx) is something else. It delivers extra stuff; it includes a set of VS project templates, docs, samples and a few tools for building REST apps (client or server) with WCF. One cool tool is the "Paste Xml as Type" command add-in to Visual Studio.

On the other hand, building a REST client, in the general case, I'd recommend taking advantage of the HttpClient assembly in the starter kit (Microsoft.Http.dll). It's small, simple, and useful. A low-risk and high-value dependency even at the current "preview" status of the Starter Kit.

If you were consuming just a single REST service, then you don't need the general Microsoft.Http.dll assembly; you can do all the stuff it does in some code that uses WebRequest. But if you wanted a more general flexible class for manipulating client-side REST requests, then grab that Microsoft.Http.dll.