Creating Web Services In .NET To Return XML And JSON Data

Ankur Mistry

10y332.4k24100Article

ASP.NET Web Services JSONcreating web servicesReturn XML

24 Comments

Join the conversation! Your thoughts help the community grow.

mukul kandpal7y ago
Can you create image updating in .asmx. Please reply Mukul Kandpal
- Ankur Mistry7y ago
  I am not getting you, can you elaborate more, if you are talking about can we update image then yes we can do that.
Hadshana Kamalanathan8y ago
Good one...
Sohil Ahmed8y ago
This is a good tutorial but I'm getting JSON in an XML tag, what should I do to get just the JSON.
Rafael Camara8y ago
If I create two webmethods on the same asmx, one is to return in xml and second one to return in Json. It's possible if I put the code JsonConvert.SerializeObject(ds, Newtonsoft.Json.Formatting.Indented)?
Dharmendra Kumar8y ago
Thanks Mr Ankur for helpful article
Mark Lynn10y ago
The result is still XML. JSON is contained in the XML tags. How NOT to have the tags is the question. Is there an answer? No one seems to be able to answer that one.
- Jayant Kumar9y ago
  If the return type of webmethod is void, the output will not contain xml tag.
- Bob Areddy8y ago
  Jayant you cannot return a value if the return type webmethod is void.
Asfend Yar10y ago
Nice Share
Santhakumar Munuswamy10y ago
Thanks for nice article
Paras Pachouri10y ago
Nice Article!!!!!
Ravindra More10y ago
Nicely explained !!
- Ankur Mistry10y ago
  thank you
Ankur Mistry10y ago
Thank you
Pinky Solanki10y ago
nice
Former member10y ago
Nice article sir....
sagar nathe10y ago
Very use full in real time scenario.
Ankur Mistry10y ago
Thank you.
Saineshwar Bageri10y ago
Good one
Humayun Kabir Mamun10y ago
Nice...
Nikhil Rajput10y ago
Very use full Information.
Mayank Sharma10y ago
Nice article Sir.
Mannan10y ago
Good one

Here we are going to learn how to create a web services in ASP.NET which will return data as XML and JSON.

Step 1: Create new project and select ASP.NET web Application.

Step 2: Select Empty template and click OK.

Step 3: Now add Web Service in project and give it name webservice1.asmx,

Step 4: Make sure you add the connection string in your web.config file as in the following screenshot,

Step 5: Now add the references System.data, System.Data.SqlClient and System.configuration,

Step 6: Create Employee table and run the following script in your SQL query editor,

/****** Object: Table [dbo].[Employee] Script Date: 09-12-2015 23:40:32 ******/
SET
ANSI_NULLS ON GO
SET
QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON GO CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Employee](
[EmpId] [int] IDENTITY(1, 1) NOT NULL,
[EmpFirstName] [nvarchar](50) NULL,
[EmpLastName] [nvarchar](50) NULL,
[DeptId] [int] NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_Employee] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([EmpId] ASC) WITH (
PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF,
IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON,
ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON
) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY] GO

Now add the following method in your webservice1.asmx.cs file,

[WebMethod]
public DataSet getEmp()
{
string sql = "SELECT [EmpId],[EmpFirstName],[EmpLastName],[DeptId] FROM Employee";
SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter(sql, ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["Connection"].ToString());
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
da.Fill(ds);
return ds;
}

Write a SQL query, create a SqlDataAdapter object and pass the SQL query and connection string.

Step 7: Save and run the services by clicking F5 and invoking getEmp method as in the following,

Step 8 : Click on Invoke.

Step 9: It will return all the employees details in XML format.

XML

Step 10 : Now for JSON return please add newtonsoft.json from the NuGet Manager. Go to Tools, then NuGet Package Manager and click on Package Manager console.

Step 11: Write PM> Install-Package Newtonsoft.Json. It will add the reference Newtonsoft.Json in our project.

Step 12: It will display Success message as per the following screen, once you install the package.

Step 13: Now add the reference Newtonsoft.Json in your code.

Step 14: Create the method 'getEmployee' same as above method 'getEmp'. The only difference here is we use jsonConvert.SerializateIbject to serialize the data.

[WebMethod]
public string getEmployee()
{
string sql = "SELECT [EmpId],[EmpFirstName],[EmpLastName],[DeptId] FROM Employee";
SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter(sql, ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["Connection"].ToString());
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
da.Fill(ds);
return JsonConvert.SerializeObject(ds, Newtonsoft.Json.Formatting.Indented);
}

Step 15: Now run the service and invoke getEmployee method.

Step 16: It will return the same data but in JSON format.

Thanks for reading the article. Hope you like it.