Returning XML document from Web Service

**richyrich** · richyrich, March 25th, 2009 01:18 PM

I have a web service that is used to retrieve a list of db entries based on the entry clicked by the user. This is all working fine. At the moment though I build a string of HTML code inside the web service and return this to my Javascript to render it to the screen.

What I think might be better is to return an XML document to the Javascript and then handle the HTML rendering in there. But, I can't quite figure out how to return the result as an XML document. I think I need to use XMLTextWriter but I'm not sure how to write the XML to a variable and return that.

At the moment I have:-

Code:

<WebMethod>_
    Public Function GetList(ByVal ref as integer) As ? what do I return it as? XMLDocument?
    Dim XMLresult as new XmlTextWriter( this would normally be a path to an XML file or response.OutputStream. What should I use as the stream?

I think once I get the stream bit and what I should be returning the document as, I should be OK. It's these bits I'm unsure of.

What I want returned is something like:-

Code:

<filenotelist>
   <filenote>
         <title>Filenote 1</title>
         <dateadded>25/03/09</dateadded>
         <note>Some text</note>
   </filenote>
   <filenote>
          <title>Filenote 2</title>
          <dateadded>24/03/09</dateadded>
          <note>Some more text</note>
   </filenote>
</filenotelist>

Or if an error occurs, something like:-

Code:

<filenotelist>
    <error>There was an error</error>
</filenotelist>

**jmurrayhead** · jmurrayhead, March 25th, 2009 02:24 PM

To be honest, I would just return the data as a DataTable and work with that.

**richyrich** · richyrich, March 30th, 2009 04:34 PM

Would you use that in JS like an XML Doc?

**jmurrayhead** · jmurrayhead, March 30th, 2009 04:43 PM

Perhaps I misunderstood your need...I suppose you could return a String or MemoryStream.

**werD** · werD, April 15th, 2009 03:58 PM

I would definitely just return the outerxml of the document as a string and parse it out of the xml response your getting from the web service. without namespaces xml is just delimeted text anyway. If you're not using full blown ajax(ie partial postbacks and what not), you can still use js, xsl, or css to transform and react to the returned string of xml data.

**richyrich** · richyrich, April 16th, 2009 05:23 AM

Not entirely sure what you mean by "return the outerxml of the document"?

I am using AJAX to call the web service using a JS function which then returns to a completion JS function.

I was just wondering if there was an easy way to build the XML document within the web service. I am working on something at the moment so hopefully that might do what I want...

**werD** · werD, April 16th, 2009 03:07 PM

What i meant was that the XmlDocument class in .net has a property called OuterXml that is the entire string content of the document.

So if you were constructing your document with code using the XmlDocument class
ie

Code:

Dim xDoc as New XmlDocument
'then something like this (on lunch)
Dim rootNode as XmlElement = xDoc.CreateDocumentElement("MyElementName")

you could just return xDoc.OuterXml

of course you could always just do this

Code:

Dim returnStr as String = "<MyXmlDoc>" & _
"<MyNode>"  & MyNodeValue & "</MyNode>" & _ 
  "</MyXmlDoc>"

return returnStr

Is that more clear?

**richyrich** · richyrich, April 17th, 2009 05:27 AM

Ah, yes. That makes more sense.

I am using the XMLDocument class, but was going to return an XML document. Should I set it to return a string and just return the OuterXML then?

**jmurrayhead** · jmurrayhead, April 17th, 2009 09:24 AM

Originally Posted by richyrich

Ah, yes. That makes more sense.

I am using the XMLDocument class, but was going to return an XML document. Should I set it to return a string and just return the OuterXML then?

Yes, RR, I think that's what he was suggesting from the start

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