Passing strongly-typed datasets from WebService to C# consumer

[rival]

Hi.

I've a single solution with many projects. I'm using VS2003 and framework 1.1

1. Data project - contains UserData class, inheriting from DataSet, and
setting up constants and columns like those found in the Duwamish 7 sample
2. WebServices project - wraps up business logic
3. C# winforms consumer connecting to the WebServices. This project has
the data project as a reference.

What I want to do (and what I'm sure I've done before) is to have a UserData
object. I've got a Login method on the webservice, which I want to return
this UserData object. I've got a WebMethod

[WebMethod]
public UserData GetUser(string username)
{
Users getUser = new Users();
return getUser.GetUser (username);
} //GetUser

OK - so far so good.

I've added the WebReference in the WinForms project for the user services.
However, it seems to have shoved a load of code in defining 'NewDataSet'.
This means that in my WinForms I've got (where 'user' is the webservice):

bool valid = false;
if ( user.Login(user name, password) )
{
UserData loginUser = user.GetUser(us ername);
valid = true;
}
return valid;

And I get an invalid cast beacuse even though in the webmethod I've
specified a return type of 'UserData', in the webreferece this has been
replaced with this reference to 'NewDataSet'!!!

In the WinForms code above, 'user.GetUser(u sername)' is defined as returning
'NewDataset' when I want it to be cast as 'UserData' as it is in the WS
source code.

How do I get the webservice to actually return the correct object?

Code on request.

[Dale]

You cannot directly return any custom class from a web service and a
strongly-typed dataset is not a dataset, it's a custom class inherited from a
dataset.

You can work around the issue in several ways that will at least make it
relatively seamless to code, other than the workaround itself. I have a
series of articles that describe some solutions at
http://www.dalepreston.com/Blog/2005...-from-web.html.

HTH

Dale
--
Dale Preston
MCAD C#
MCSE, MCDBA
"ri***@newsgrou ps.nospam" wrote:

Hi.

I've a single solution with many projects. I'm using VS2003 and framework 1.1

1. Data project - contains UserData class, inheriting from DataSet, and
setting up constants and columns like those found in the Duwamish 7 sample
2. WebServices project - wraps up business logic
3. C# winforms consumer connecting to the WebServices. This project has
the data project as a reference.

What I want to do (and what I'm sure I've done before) is to have a UserData
object. I've got a Login method on the webservice, which I want to return
this UserData object. I've got a WebMethod

[WebMethod]
public UserData GetUser(string username)
{
Users getUser = new Users();
return getUser.GetUser (username);
} //GetUser

OK - so far so good.

I've added the WebReference in the WinForms project for the user services.
However, it seems to have shoved a load of code in defining 'NewDataSet'.
This means that in my WinForms I've got (where 'user' is the webservice):

bool valid = false;
if ( user.Login(user name, password) )
{
UserData loginUser = user.GetUser(us ername);
valid = true;
}
return valid;

And I get an invalid cast beacuse even though in the webmethod I've
specified a return type of 'UserData', in the webreferece this has been
replaced with this reference to 'NewDataSet'!!!

In the WinForms code above, 'user.GetUser(u sername)' is defined as returning
'NewDataset' when I want it to be cast as 'UserData' as it is in the WS
source code.

How do I get the webservice to actually return the correct object?

Code on request.