What is Webservices and how it works

Webservices is mainly used for accessing methods in a remote server. and it is based on SOAP protocol for communicating between the server and client.

In a remote server there will be some public webmethods.

Similar to the webservice in the remote server, there will proxy client file in the clinet site.

Whenever the request is made to the server for a method, proxy client will be checking all the inputs are correct ie the arguments are right and the argument types are right ...etc.

If any input is wrong, the proxy client will be intimating the error to the client.

If the input is correct, proxy client will convert it into xml format and send to the server through SOAP protocol.

In the server side, these input are taken and process the requested methods and send the results to the proxy client in the same format XML through SOAP protocole.

In the proxy client, it will parse the XML content and extract the result and send to the client.

This how basically Webservices are working.

The extension for webservice is asmx.

The following example shows a very simple .asmx file.

<%@ WebService Language="C#" Class="HelloWorld" %>

using System;
using System.Web.Services;

public class HelloWorld : WebService {

     [WebMethod] public String SayHello(string name) {
          return "Hello " + name;
     }

}