RESTful web service auto-generate WADL

c# auto-generate wadl
David Poxon picture David Poxon · Oct 19, 2012 · Viewed 35.1k times · Source

I have created a RESTful web service in C# and have deployed it to IIS. When I access the service HeadOffice.svc, I have the option to view the WSDL (HeadOffice.svc?wsdl). What I would like to do is have the option of viewing the WADL (e.g. HeadOffice.svc?wadl). Is this possible?

I have read around the place that the general opinion is that this is not the best practice. However, I need the WADL for a school assignment, so any help would be much appreciated.

Answer

Regfor picture Regfor · Oct 19, 2012

Suppose you already know that WADL is not standard / not supported widely. And when somebody needs WADL, may be then better to use WS*/SOAP service + WSDL. So your task looks like very strange.

Anyway WADL is not supported "out of the box" in any REST implementation from Microsoft, neither WCF 3.5 Rest Starter Kit, neither WCF 4 REST, and ASP.NET WebAPI.

There are no reliable tools for WADL for .NET.

When your goal is to generate C# client code using WADL, believe me, you will spend more time as writing client code by yourself. And there are better solutions for that.

You can use new classes like HttpClient class or RestSharp or similar libraries to easily manually write your client and it will be even faster then googling for reliable WADL solution for .NET

Similar question on stackoverflow: Restful service in .NET with WADL instead of WSDL

UPDATE - Swagger: For some years swagger has established itself as such format. You can either start writing service definition using swagger's YAML in the Swagger editor or let generate swagger from existing services, for .NET using Swashbuckle library. The second is something we had with WSDL, and swagger editor let's you generate client and server boilerplates. Regardless you are generating your server or client or not fan of it, swagger is actually a very good contract exchange format for REST service, not ideal but good option.

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