C++ Web References in VS 2008 | Tech Off

tgraupmann648

After loads of searching, it turns out that Microsoft officially removed SOAP support from Visual Studio 2008 C++. The code can be added from [CodePlex]. Basically, a portion of the code became open source and was removed from Visual Studio to avoid potential legal issues in the future. This functionality is referred to as the [AtlServer]. [VS Team Studio blog] has a post about the separation being a good thing. But really, not having the web reference integrated, this sucks.

Even using VS 2005, proxy generation isn't great. Instead of creating the proper structs, I get a bunch of BSTR and wchar_t strings.

tgraupmann648

I would be more inclined to use a Windows Communication Framework SOAP endpoint. Hopefully, WCF works in C++ and can talk to C# web services, and can serialize properly.

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/rojacobs/endpointtv-The-Total-Noobs-Guide-to-WCF-Lesson-1-My-First-WCF-Service/

"Oopps any managed process can host an endpoint". I was looking to interact from an unmanaged process, but we'll see...

tgraupmann648

In reply to tgraupmann648

#Sep 23rd, 2008 @ 12:33 PM

gSoap looks like a better option.

tgraupmann648

In reply to tgraupmann648

#Sep 23rd, 2008 @ 1:46 PM

gSoap worked in both VS 2005 and VS 2008 C++. It's better IMO since it also generates the proxy structures.

Yggdrasil
Pour me a cab, 'cause I can't drink no more.

In reply to tgraupmann648

#Sep 23rd, 2008 @ 9:44 PM

Cool, a day after I read this thread of yours, I suddenly find myself needing to access SOAP services in unmanaged C++. Thanks for the gSoap tip!

cristian.amarie
Berserker

I'm including the proper SOAP support from AtlServer, and use a custom pre-build by running sproxy <web service URL>, say
.\sproxy\sproxy.exe /wsdl /out:TheWebService.h http://www.acme.com/WS/TheWebService.asmx?wsdl
(assuming is an asmx).

This will create the TheWebService.h file, then include in your wrapper class and that's it.
(sproxy comes in source code also in AtlServer\source\SProxy).