Passing object with WCF RESTful - wcf

Question

[WebInvoke(Method = "PUT", UriTemplate = "users/{username}")]
[OperationContract]
void PutUser(string username, User newValue);//update a user
I have a update user method defined as showed above. Then I use a HttpWebRequest to test the method, but how can I pass the User object with this HttpWebResquest?
The following code is what I got so far.
string uri = "http://localhost:8080/userservice/users/userA";
HttpWebRequest req = WebRequest.Create(uri) as HttpWebRequest;
req.Method = "PUT";
req.ContentType = " application/xml";
req.Proxy = null;

Answer 1

string uri = "http://localhost:8080/userservice/users/userA";
string user = "<User xmlns=\"http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/RESTful\" xmlns:i=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance\"><DOB>2009-01-18T00:00:00</DOB><Email>userA#example.com</Email><Id>1</Id><Name>Sample User</Name><Username>userA</Username></User>";
byte[] reqData = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(user);
HttpWebRequest req = WebRequest.Create(uri) as HttpWebRequest;
req.Method = "POST";
req.ContentType = " application/xml";
req.ContentLength = user.Length;
req.Proxy = null;
Stream reqStream = req.GetRequestStream();
reqStream.Write(reqData, 0, reqData.Length);
HttpWebResponse resp = req.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;
string code = resp.StatusCode.ToString();
//StreamReader sr = new StreamReader( resp.GetResponseStream());
//string respStr = sr.ReadToEnd();
Console.WriteLine(code);
Console.Read();
I found the solution, I need to construct the xml string I want to pass and then write it into stream

Answer 2

In WCF/REST you don't pass an object, you pass a message.
If I were doing this, as a first step, I would create a WCF client that interacts with the service. I would examine the messages passed on the wire by the WCF client, and then I'd replicate that message with the HttpWebRequest.