How to Read Binary Documents (in base64 binary format) by ASP.NET Web Service

Add new web service in your ASP.NET web application.

Adding a web service will create two file in your web application:

1)      ASMX FILE(For example WebService.asmx)

2)      CS FILE(in App_Code folder, like WebService.cs)

Create web method inside it as follow.  It takes document name as parameter and returns array of byte (binary data).

 

[WebMethod]

public Byte[] ReadDocument(string strDocumentName)

{

string strdocPath;

strdocPath = “D:\\TESTDIR1\\TESTDIR2″ + strDocumentName;

FileStream objfilestream = new FileStream(strdocPath,FileMode.Open,FileAccess.Read);

int docLen = (int)objfilestream.Length;

Byte[] arrDocumentContents  = new Byte[docLen];

objfilestream.Read(arrDocumentContents,0,len);

objfilestream.Close();

return arrDocumentContents;

}

 

Above example reads file from a physical path on a system. You can also use Server.MapPath() for specifying virtual directory.

You can call webservice by using following like URL

http://yourdomain / WebService.asmx/ ReadDocument? strDocumentName=test.gif

 

Web service will return base64 binary data as follow:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>

<base64Binary xmlns=”http://tempuri.org/”>R0lGODlhCAAFAIABAMaAgP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAAIAAUAAAIKBBKGebzqoJKtAAA7</base64Binary&gt;