Amazon Hacks

Program AWS with SOAP and VB.NET

VB.NET was made for Web Services. With some WSDL magic, much of the code is generated for you.

This little application isn’t particularly fascinating, but the code here can be used as a foundation for more complex VB.NET applications that use Amazon Web Services. The basic methods of creating a SOAP proxy and the syntax for making the request can be used no matter how simple or complex the application.

WSDL (Web Service Description Language) files can allow Web Services to describe what features and functions are available. Software can examine the WSDL file and automatically generate the code necessary to access it. This is exactly what the .NET framework can do. By supplying the Amazon Web Services WSDL file, much of the work is done for you!

What You Need

First, make sure you have the .NET framework and the .NET SDK, both freely available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/downloads/list/netdevframework.asp. You could also create the program in Visual Studio if you have it available, but it’s not necessary.

Next, create the SOAP client proxy. The wsdl.exe program examines a WSDL file and generates the code to create the class. You run it on the command line like this, providing the latest WSDL file:

               wsdl.exe /l:vb http://soap.amazon.com/schemas2/AmazonWebServices.wsdl

This creates the file AmazonWebServices.vb .

Tip

To get a sense of what this program is working with, bring up the WSDL file in a browser. You’ll see definitions for ...