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Thanks to Yvan C.

First of all, you will need Visual Studio 2005 or 2008. Once you’ve created a web site project or an web site application project, you need to add to the solution a “Web Service” page. You can call that web service “Test.asmx”. By default you will see an “Hello World” test function. To try out that fabulous function press “F5″ to compile and run from the test.asmx page. By doing that, it will display you the available function for your Web Services. Click on it to see how to call that function by soap or HTTP post. You also have in that screen a button to invoke your web method inside your service. If you had any primitive parameters (Ex.: string, int, bool, …), you would see the inputs to call your method. In your case, only click on the button “Invoke”. The result displayed on your browser should be an “Hello World” text.

Let’s get back to the “Test.asmx” and replace the hello world function by “GetXMLDataSetData”. Don’t put any arguments at the moment. Inside that function, put the following code:

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[WebMethod]
public XmlDocument GetXMLDataSetData() {
	XmlDocument myXmlDocument = new XmlDocument();
	DataSet myDataSet = new DataSet("MyDataSetName");
	DataTable myDataTable = new DataTable("MyDataTableStuff");
 
	myDataSet.Tables.Add(myDataTable);
 
	myDataTable.Columns.Add("FirstName", typeof(string));
	myDataTable.Columns.Add("LastName", typeof(string));
	myDataTable.Columns.Add("FullName", typeof(string), "LastName + ', ' + FirstName");
	DataRow dtrow = myDataTable.NewRow();
	dtrow["FirstName"] = "Nordes";
	dtrow["LastName"] = "Lamarre";
 
	myDataTable.Rows.Add(dtrow);
	myDataTable.AcceptChanges();
 
	myXmlDocument.LoadXml(myDataSet.GetXml());
    return myXmlDocument;
}

The result given by clicking the invoke button will be the following:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<MyDataSetName>
  <MyDataTableStuff>
    <FirstName>Nordes</FirstName>
    <LastName>Lamarre</LastName>
    <FullName>Lamarre, Nordes</FullName>
  </MyDataTableStuff>
</MyDataSetName>

What you could also do is calling a stored procedure that is returning you a dataset. From that DataSet, you only return the tables you need with the appropriate data.

You first need to create your enum if it doesn’t already exists in your actual project:

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private enum MyEnum
{
	POSSIBLE_VALUE_1 = 1,
	POSSIBLE_VALUE_2 = 2,
	DEFAULT_VALUE = 1
}

After, in your page load or wherever you need it, you can do as follow to convert your string to your enum. That way, it will be more useful inside your project.

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MyEnum test;
 
try
{
	test = (MyEnum)Enum.Parse(typeof(MyEnum), Request.QueryString["MyQueryStringItem"].ToString(), true);
}
catch (Exception)
{
	// Possible exception: 
	//	The query string does not exist : NullReferenceException
	//	The query string value is not in the enum: ArgumentException
 
	test = MyEnum.DEFAULT_VALUE; // Or you can throw your own exception here.
}

You now see how easy it is to convert a simple string to an enum type. After that conversion, it will be more usable across your project. You will also be able to do switch with a more robust case. In case you change your enum list and you remove an item. At compile time, it will tell you that the enum value selected does not exists. That way your code stay clean.