West Wind Web Service Proxy Generator
for Visual FoxPro                                                                               

Making Web Services Calls from FoxPro Easy

Need to access Web Service with Visual FoxPro? Then you've probably found that Visual FoxPro doesn't make this task easy as the native tools to call Web Services are dated and deprecated. The SOAP Toolkit is limited and doesn't work well with complex types, so what should you use? .NET provides a reliable and up to date Web Service platform, but accessing Web Service through .NET from FoxPro can be complex and time consuming.

We generate Code for you so you don't have to write it

The West Wind Web Service Proxy Generator can help making .NET as a Web Service proxy drastically easier. We generate a FoxPro class and .NET assembly for you through a very easy Wizard interface. Point at the WSDL file and the Wizard does the rest. Once generated most service calls can be made using standard FoxPro method calls even if complex types are passed or returned without custom XML formatting or complex configuration settings.

This tool provides the following features:

• Works with complex Web Services
• Uses an easy to use Web Service Wizard
• Creates .NET Web Service Proxy Assembly
• Creates a FoxPro Proxy class as a plain PRG file
• Provides for Service Error trapping
• Provides for type conversions (Array handling, DataSet conversions, Binary types)
• ComArray wrapper type to allow easy .NET array manipulation and passing
• Works with .NET types not supported natively through COM Interop
• Lets you browse the generated .NET assembly with .NET Reflector
• Facilitates access to complex .NET components with wwDotNetBridge
• Requires no .NET code or use of Visual Studio
• Requires no COM registration of .NET components

Using this tool is a snap and you can be up and running making Web Service calls reliably in minutes.

The Web Service Proxy Generator Wizard

One of the main features of this tool is an automating Wizard that creates a .NET proxy assembly from the specified Web Service and a FoxPro PRG class that calls this .NET component without requiring COM registration.

Here's a screenshot of the Wizard which by way of its fields demonstrates much of the functionality:

This tool automates the creation of Web Service clients utilizing the .NET framework called from Visual FoxPro to make SOAP/WSDL Web Service calls. It provides a Wizard (and class interface) that auto-generates the .NET Proxy Web service assembly to handles the Web Service interaction. It also creates a Visual FoxPro proxy class that maps each of the Web Service methods to a FoxPro method that can then be called to interact with the Web service. The base service implementation is provided as a simple FoxPro class in a PRG file that can be used in your applications. You simply include the PRG file plus a couple of DLLs and FoxPro classes and you're on your way.

Easy Generation - Easy Usage

Once generated easy tools let you browse the generated .NET assembly and FoxPro class, as well as provide you an easy way to create a ready-to use set of files that can be integrated into your own application. All files are self contained and no extra registration is required to run the Web Service.

You don't need to write any .NET code or use Visual Studio - the Wizard manages the .NET and FoxPro proxy generation for you. We've also provided a quick way to browse the generated .NET assembly for discovery of the Web Service message types (ie. objects used as parameters or return values) that usually go along with the actual service implementation class.

wwDotNetBridge - Calling .NET without COM Registration

wwDotnetBridge allows access to .NET components without requiring them to be registered in the registry. This powerful tool hosts the .NET runtime in Visual FoxPro and then loads .NET types from within this runtime. wwDotnetBridge also   provides a host of helper functions that allow access to any .NET type and feature like static method invokation, enumeration access, array management, DataSet to XmlAdapter mapping and conversion of many common types to and from .NET types. Using wwDotnetBridge greatly facilitates creating .NET type instances of Web Service related objects and manipulating them from Visual FoxPro.

Limitations

To be clear: Not every possible type of web service will work. .NET's WSDL technology can successfully import just about any SOAP 1.1 and 1.2 service and work with them without issues, but there may be some oddball service implementations that don't work using the generic tools. In these rare cases manual importing and generated service proxy fixup may be required.

• This tool does not work with WS* Web Services
  WS* services are extended SOAP services that use certificates, custom headers, digital signatures and various other security and verification protocols as part of Web Service calls (collectively known as WS* protocols). Services that use these features are not supported by the WSDL importer used by this tool, and even if it did they would be too complex for generically generated solution. It's recommended you use Windows Communication Foundation as a client in .NET and manually interface FoxPro via COM Interop or wwDotnetBridge. If you need help with this scenario we can help you with custom consulting to provide guidance or support.

Try it out for Yourself

If you're accessing Web Services with Visual FoxPro, .NET is a safe choice for making sure you are building service clients that are future proof. Unlike the obsolete SOAP Toolkit or even our own wwSoap, .NET is updated frequently to support the latest Web Service standards. The proxy generator lets you take advantage of this standard platform to handle complex Web services with relative ease.

Check out this tool - it's a big time saver if you need to build Web services and don't want to figure out the technology and interaction from scratch. Download now.

If you want a deeper understanding of how Web Service interaction between FoxPro and .NET works you can read our Whitepaper on the subject which shows the traditional way of accessing Web services through .NET. Using the Proxy generator automates the processes described in this article drastically.

Download the shareware copy of the Proxy Generator and try it on your Web Services today and see how quick and easy Web Service access from FoxPro can be...