add web reference in visual studio for a restful web service

Question

I'm trying to add a web reference to a restful service, here is one sample URL:

http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/services/v1/ndc/0409-3613-01/spls.xml

and I'm getting the following error (I'm guessing because I have no access to WSDL or DISCO they aren't listed on the API help page):

The document at the url http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/services/v1/ndc/0409-3613-01/spls.xml was not recognized as a known document type. The error message from each known type may help you fix the problem: - Report from 'XML Schema' is 'The root element of a W3C XML Schema should be

I don't have access to this web service, it's run by the national library of medicine. Any thoughts on how I can add a reference within VS? Do I have to access this manually?

Answer 1

There is no standard metadata format to describe REST services. There's nothing similar to WSDL. Therefore, "Add Service Reference" or "Add Web Reference" won't work.

You'll have to look at the documentation of the service, or possibly at sample code, and build your own access layer.