I'm relatively new with web services, and I have used web services that I have created from data in our own database up to now. However, I am attempting to pull data from an external source.

The web service is located at http://www.webservicex.net/icd9.asmx. I have used the Web Reference wizzard to add it as a service. I've named it RefICD9.

I have a simple datagrid to hold the info, and in the Load Event I have:
  If Not Page.IsPostBack Then
   Dim ws As New HDCApps.RefICD9.ICD9
   Dim ICD91 As New DataSet(ws.GetICD9Level1())
   Dim dvICD91 As New DataView(ICD91.Tables(0))
   dgICD91.DataSource = dvICD91
   dgICD91.DataBind()
  End If

Simple. However, it returns an error:

Exception Details: System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Cannot find table 0.

In Debugger, if I stop the program just before defining the dataview, the dataset, ICD91 DataSetName contains the following (the entire return), but it obviously isn't converted to a table, it remains a string:

DataSetName "<NewDataSet>
 <Table>
  <ICD9Level1ID>2</ICD9Level1ID>
  <ICD9Code>140-239</ICD9Code>
  <ICD9Description>02. Neoplasms</ICD9Description>
 </Table>

[some omitted for length]

 <Table>
  <ICD9Level1ID>18</ICD9Level1ID>
  <ICD9Code>E-Codes</ICD9Code>
  <ICD9Description>Supplementary classification of external causes of injury and poisoning</ICD9Description>
 </Table>
</NewDataSet>" String

I think the problem is that there isn't a schema with the data. Is that right?

If so, what is the remedy?

Thanks,
Joe

I would have to agree with you on that one.

I looked at the WSDL for it, and I see that all the responses are strings instead of a dataset or datatable. This seems like a poor technique. As you have found, I don't think you'll be able to create a dataset from those strings because of the lack of the schema. You will probably have to read that string into an XML object and query the XML instead.

How practical would it be to create local schema(s) for this datastream? Is it possible to provide a schema where one doesn't exist? Would it change how .NET returns the data (hopefully in a dataset with a nice table)?

Joe

Well, if you know and/or can predict the schema for the data that is coming back in this string, then you could presumably tack on the schema part to this returned string to form a correctly "serialized" dataset which you could then actually cast into a dataset object. However, if the returned data string changed, then you'd run into problems. But I guess no more problems than if the service returned a regular dataset and the table structure changed so I suppose it's just as succeptable to problems.