SAP to Microsoft .NET Integration - Fixes required to WSDL after referencing SAP BAPI WSDLs to work with .NET Service References in Visual Studio 2008

After referencing a Web Service that is based on a SAP BAPI (as opposed to a SAP Enterprise Service), you may need to save and modify the WSDL so to remove reserved words in the file. Otherwise, you will get compile-time errors from the Service Reference generated code such as:


An object reference is required for the non-static field, method, or property 'SharePointCustomLookup.CostCentreSearchService.Bapiret2.System.get'


Solution/Fix:
1. Save the WSDL from the HTTP location to your local machine (you can get this WSDL location if it is already set up from transaction /soamanager in SAP GUI). Open up the wsdl in your fave text editor.
2. Replace all instances of “System” with “SYSTEM” (To avoid conflicts with the System namespace in .NET)
3. Replace all instances of “parameters” with “parameter” so that parameters are read correctly by Visual Studio 2008.
4. Update your service reference to use the locally modified WSDL (which should have the correct endpoints to the web services on your SAP PI/ECC Server )

These modifications to the WSDL is not required for all BAPI Web Service calls - only ones which exhibit the compile-time issue.

One other important thing to note is that if your BAPI has an input parameter, then you have to instantiate the parameter AND all the lists and arrays which make up that input parameter - otherwise you won't get a return result.

e.g. For calling a Project Definition GetList BAPI, you have to instantiate parameter and the Project Definition List with a zero-sized array - otherwise you will NOT get any values back - and yet receive no error.

//You must instantiate the input parameter and any lists/arrays within that 
//parameter for any results to be returned
Z_BAPI_PROJECTDEF_GETLISTClient client = new Z_BAPI_PROJECTDEF_GETLISTClient();
ProjectdefGetlist parameter = new ProjectdefGetlist();
parameter.ProjectDefinitionList = new Bapiprexp[0];
ProjectdefGetlistResponse response = client.ProjectdefGetlist(parameter);