How to read body of HttpRequest POSTed to a REST web service - C# WCF

Question

I have an Apex Class (a class in SalesForce) that calls out to a REST web service.

public class WebServiceCallout 

{

    @future (callout=true)

    public static void sendNotification(String aStr) 

    {

        HttpRequest req = new HttpRequest();

        HttpResponse res = new HttpResponse();

        Http http = new Http();

        req.setEndpoint('http://xx.xxx.xxx.xx:41000/TestService/web/test');

        req.setMethod('POST');

        req.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');

        req.setBody(aStr); // I want to read this in the web service

        try 

        {

            res = http.send(req);

        } 

        catch(System.CalloutException e) 

        {

            System.debug('Callout error: '+ e);

            System.debug(res.toString());

        }

    }

}

The REST web service (C#, WCF) looks like so:

public interface ITestService

{

    [OperationContract]

    [WebInvoke(Method = "POST",

     ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,

     BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare,

     UriTemplate = "/test")]

    string Test(string aStr);

}

The Test() method does primitive operations.

When I run:

WebServiceCallout.sendNotification("a test message")

the POST gets to the web service but how can I read what was set in the body of the HttpRequest req that was set back in the sendNotification() method - req.setBody(aStr);?

That is, what should the parameter of string Test(string aStr); be?

Do I need to specify anything else such as any configs/attributes in my WebInvoke or the App.config (e.g. the binding)?

Answer 1

You can read the raw body of the incoming request, by defining the type of the parameter as a Stream, not string. As shown in the code below:

public class StackOverflow_25377059

{

    [ServiceContract]

    public interface ITestService

    {

        [OperationContract]

        [WebInvoke(Method = "POST",

         ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,

         BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare,

         UriTemplate = "/test")]

        string Test(Stream body);

    }

    public class Service : ITestService

    {

        public string Test(Stream body)

        {

            return new StreamReader(body).ReadToEnd();

        }

    }

    class RawMapper : WebContentTypeMapper

    {

        public override WebContentFormat GetMessageFormatForContentType(string contentType)

        {

            return WebContentFormat.Raw;

        }

    }

    public static void Test()

    {

        var baseAddress = "http://" + Environment.MachineName + ":8000/Service";

        var host = new ServiceHost(typeof(Service), new Uri(baseAddress));

        var binding = new WebHttpBinding { ContentTypeMapper = new RawMapper() };

        host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(ITestService), binding, "").Behaviors.Add(new WebHttpBehavior());

        host.Open();

        Console.WriteLine("Host opened");

        var req = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(baseAddress + "/test");

        req.Method = "POST";

        req.ContentType = "application/json";

        var reqStream = req.GetRequestStream();

        var body = "a test message";

        var bodyBytes = new UTF8Encoding(false).GetBytes(body);

        reqStream.Write(bodyBytes, 0, bodyBytes.Length);

        reqStream.Close();

        var resp = (HttpWebResponse)req.GetResponse();

        Console.WriteLine("HTTP/{0} {1} {2}", resp.ProtocolVersion, (int)resp.StatusCode, resp.StatusDescription);

        foreach (var header in resp.Headers.AllKeys)

        {

            Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", header, resp.Headers[header]);

        }

        Console.WriteLine();

        Console.WriteLine(new StreamReader(resp.GetResponseStream()).ReadToEnd());

        Console.WriteLine();

    }

}