Executing ASMX files without a web server

This console application takes a SOAP message (on stdin) and an ASMX filename and a SOAPAction header (as command-line parameters) and returns the resulting SOAP message on stdout. The ASMX file should be in the same directory as the executable; full paths are not supported.

using System;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Hosting;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.Remoting;
using System.Globalization;
namespace AspHostTest
{
  public class SoapWorkerRequest : SimpleWorkerRequest
  {
    string soapstr;
    string soapAction;
    public SoapWorkerRequest(string page,string soapstr,
      string soapAction,TextWriter output) : base(page,null,output)
    {
      this.soapstr = soapstr;
      this.soapAction = soapAction;
    }
    public override string GetHttpVerbName()
    {
      return "POST";
    }
    public override int ReadEntityBody(byte[] buffer, int size)
    {
      char [] chars = soapstr.ToCharArray();
      for (int i=0; i<chars.Length; i++)
        buffer[i] = (byte) chars[i];
      return chars.Length;
    }
    public override string GetKnownRequestHeader(int index)
    {
      string retval;
      switch (index)
      {
        case 11:
          retval = String.Format("{0}",soapstr.Length);
          break;
        case 12:
          retval = "text/xml; charset=utf-8";
          break;
        default:
          retval = null;
          break;
      }
      return retval;
    }
    public override string[][] GetUnknownRequestHeaders()
    {
      string [] vals = {"SOAPAction",soapAction};
      string [][] namesvals = {vals};
      return namesvals;
    }
    public override string MapPath(string path)
    {
      if (path == GetFilePath())
        return GetFilePathTranslated();
      return base.MapPath(path);
    }
  }
  public class MyExeHost : MarshalByRefObject
  {
    public void ProcessRequest(String page,string soapmsg,string soapAction)
    {
      HttpWorkerRequest hwr = 
        new SoapWorkerRequest(page,soapmsg,soapAction,Console.Out);
      HttpRuntime.ProcessRequest(hwr);
    }
  }
  class MyAspHost
  {
    public static object CreateApplicationHost(Type hostType,
      string virtualDir, string physicalDir) 
    {
      if (!(physicalDir.EndsWith("\\")))
        physicalDir = physicalDir + "\\";
      string aspDir = HttpRuntime.AspInstallDirectory;
      string domainId = DateTime.Now.ToString(
        DateTimeFormatInfo.InvariantInfo).GetHashCode().ToString("x");
      string appName = (virtualDir + physicalDir).GetHashCode().ToString("x");
      AppDomainSetup setup = new AppDomainSetup();
      setup.ApplicationName = appName;
      setup.ConfigurationFile = "web.config";
      AppDomain ad = AppDomain.CreateDomain(domainId, null, setup);
      ad.SetData(".appDomain", "*");
      ad.SetData(".appPath", physicalDir);
      ad.SetData(".appVPath", virtualDir);
      ad.SetData(".domainId", domainId);
      ad.SetData(".hostingVirtualPath", virtualDir);
      ad.SetData(".hostingInstallDir", aspDir);
      ObjectHandle oh = ad.CreateInstance(hostType.Module.Assembly.FullName,
        hostType.FullName);
      return oh.Unwrap();
    }
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      MyExeHost myHost = (MyExeHost)CreateApplicationHost(typeof(MyExeHost),
        "/",Directory.GetCurrentDirectory());
      myHost.ProcessRequest(args[0],Console.In.ReadToEnd(),args[1]);
    }
  }
}
 

To compile the program, open a Visual Studio .NET command prompt (or any other command prompt session with the C# compiler in the path) and run this command:

csc /t:exe /r:System.Web.dll WsHostTest.cs

Put the exe file in a directory with an ASMX file. Here’s the simple file I’ve used in my tests:

<%@ WebService Language="C#" Debug="true" Class="foo" %>
using System.Web.Services;


public class foo
{
  [WebMethod()]
  public string echo(string input)
  {
    return input;
  }
}

I also created a file with the SOAP message I wanted to use as input for the program. Here is the contents of this file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope
  xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
 <soap:Body>
  <echo xmlns="http://tempuri.org/">
   <input>Howdy</input>
  </echo>
 </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
</pre>

To call the program, I entered this command line:

WsHostTest echo.asmx http://tempuri.org/echo <soaptext.txt

© Copyright 2003 Jim Klopfenstein. Last update: 2/10/2003; 8:43:53 AM.