Tim Mackey's Weblog

I wanted to improve the performance of my winforms app sending binary data to a web service, so i chose to upgrade to WSE 2.0 and use the DIME specification. 

I checked out the examples in the docs, but only found one with a web service sending an attachment to a client.  i wanted it the other way around.  i tried to modify it to suit my own needs, but couldn't get it to work. (in the end i had the response and request contexts mixed up). I searched high and low online and finally found that there is a sample as part of the WSE full installation which contains just what i wanted.  I could find no mention of this sample in the docs, so I am posting it here.

The code below shows the important methods, on the client and on the server.  It assumes a web project and winforms project both set up for WSE2.0. 

// this is part of a winforms application with an openfiledialog
private void btnUpload_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
  if(this.openFileDialog1.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
  {
    DimeAttachment dimeAttach = new DimeAttachment("image/gif", TypeFormat.MediaType,this.openFileDialog1.FileName);
    ws = new TestService.Test();
    ws.RequestSoapContext.Attachments.Add(dimeAttach);
    ws.ReceiveImage(Path.GetFileName(this.openFileDialog1.FileName));
    MessageBox.Show("Upload successful");
  }
  else
    MessageBox.Show("No file selected");
}

// web service method...
[WebMethod]
public void ReceiveImage(string filename)
{
  // Reject any requests which are not valid SOAP requests
  if (RequestSoapContext.Current == null)
    throw new ApplicationException("Only SOAP requests are permitted.");
  if (RequestSoapContext.Current.Attachments.Count == 0)
    throw new ApplicationException("No attachments were sent with the message.");

  try
  {
    FileStream f = System.IO.File.OpenWrite(Server.MapPath("Upload/" + filename));
    Stream s = RequestSoapContext.Current.Attachments[0].Stream;
    byte[] bytes = new byte[s.Length];
    s.Read(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
    s.Close();
    f.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
    f.Close();
  }
  catch(Exception ex)
  {
    throw ex; // or log it...
  }
}