return DataSet in WCF?

Question

Hi everyone WCF noob here... We have VB.NET 2003 web services that are returning datasets... I need to write a REST WCF service and return those datasets. I cannot use LINQ since the database is SQL 2000 ... so is it possible to return a whole dataset in wcf? I haven't found anything on returning datasets yet... Are there any examples on the web? TIA

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Okay sorry; I don't know much about WCF. I hope there is enough information now for someone else to help.

Derek · Answer

Hi Sam I guess the part that I don't understand is that once i retrieve my dataset or my datatable from a query is there anything else that I need to do to return that data via REST/JSON... i think from what I've read on the web is that i need to create a LIST from that datatable so that its easily passed back to the client via REST. Is that assumption correct?

Sam Hobbs · Answer

The term dataset is ambiguous. Microsoft uses the term to refer to an in-memory copy of database data but many people use the term to refer to a file. If the dataset is a collection of tables then I assume that you just need to serialize each table to XML and send each of them. You could combine all the data into one XML file. Are you totally sure you did not look for articles in this web site before asking for samples? I assume that after you created this thread you got an email messae with suggestions. I hope that helpled. If you missed it then look at the list of articles at the right side of this wndow.