wcf json web service

Question

What is the best way to create a JSON web service? We have another team that is using Java and they insist to having all communication done using JSON. I would prefer to use WCF rather than any 3rd party framework.

I found this blog: http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/164419.aspx, and it suggests that the Microsoft implementation is flawed with M$ specific crap.

Answer 1

I ended up using JayRock. Its fantastic piece of technology, just works. You don't get any NullReferenceExceptions like from this crap WCF if you don't configure it correctly.

Answer 2

If you use WCF and the 3.5 Framework, it couldn't be easier. When you mark your OperationContracts with the WebGet attribute, just set the ResponseFormat parameter to WebMessageFormat.Json. When the service is accessed RESTfully, it will return the data using the DataContractJsonSerializer.

It's really helpful to mark the POCOs that you want to JSON serialize as [DataContract] and to mark each serializable member as [DataMember]. Otherwise, you end up with funky JSON, as Rick pointed out in his blog post.

Answer 3

I maintain a mature Open Source alternative to WCF in ServiceStack, a modern, code-first, model-driven, WCF replacement web services framework encouraging code and remote best-practices for creating terse, DRY, high-perfomance, scalable REST web services.

It includes .NET's fastest JSON Serializer and has automatic support JSON, JSONP, CORS headers as well as form-urlencoded/multipart-formdata. The Online Demos are a good start to look at since they all use Ajax.

In addition, there's no XML config, or code-gen and your 'write-once' C# web service provides all JSON, XML, SOAP, JSV, CSV, HTML endpoints enabled out-of-the-box, automatically with hooks to plug in your own Content Types if needed.

It also includes generic sync/async service clients providing a fast, typed, client/server communication gateway end-to-end.

This is the complete example of all the code needed to create a simple web service, that is automatically without any config, registered and made available on all the web data formats on pre-defined and custom REST-ful routes:

public class Hello {
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

public class HelloResponse {
    public string Result { get; set; }
}

public class HelloService : IService<Hello> {
    public object Execute(Hello request)
    {
        return new HelloResponse { Result = "Hello, " + request.Name };
    }
}

Above service can be called (without any build-steps/code-gen) in C# with the line below:

var client = new JsonServiceClient(baseUrl);
var response = client.Send<HelloResponse>(new Hello { Name = "World!" });
Console.WriteLine(response.Result); // => Hello, World

And in jQuery with:

$.getJSON('hello/World!', function(r){ 
    alert(r.Result); 
});

Answer 4

What is the best way to create a JSON web service? We have another team that is using Java and they insist to having all communication done using JSON. I would prefer to use WCF rather than any 3rd party framework.

Here's an easy-to-follow walkthrough, which takes you through the process of setting up your first WCF Service, then linking it to a SQL Server database.

http://mikesknowledgebase.com/pages/Services/WebServices-Page1.htm

It uses Microsoft's beloved Northwind SQL Server database, and shows how to write a simple JSON WCF Web Service to read and write it's data.

Oh, and it then shows how to consume the JSON data using JavaScript or an iOS application.

Good luck !