Alas...trying to get a web service response from a web service that is part of the web site in Visual Studio.Net 3.5 appears to be impossible.  Infact, I've been ALL over the internet over the past couple of days looking at all types of fragmentory examples in all types of Microsoft languages to no avail.
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QUESTION:
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1.  How do I call a web service (the function to call is "WebService_BulkData") so that my aspx page will send it a SOAP request and print out the web service response data to the page?  The aspx page AND the web service are part of the SAME web site project.  The web site project is being developed on a beta server (not locally stored on a computer and then uploaded).
Man, that sure sounds simple, doesn't it?
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Here is the latest code-behind page_load() for the default.aspx page which calls the web service, gets its response and then just dumps it to the page so it can be determined that we are getting somewhere:
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Dim objRequest As WebRequest = HttpWebRequest.Create("http://betasite.com/WebService_BulkData.asmx")
Dim encode As Encoding = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding("utf-8")
Dim soapBody As String = ""
soapBody = "<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"" xmlns:xsd=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"" xmlns:soap=""http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"">"
soapBody = "<soap:Body>"
soapBody = "<XMLServiceData xmlns=""http://betasite.com"" />"
soapBody = "</soap:Body>"
soapBody = "</soap:Envelope>"
objRequest.Method = "POST"
objRequest.ContentType = "text/xml; charset=utf-8"
objRequest.ContentLength = soapBody.Length
objRequest.Headers.Add("SOAPAction", "XMLServiceData")
Dim myRequest As System.IO.StreamWriter = New System.IO.StreamWriter(objRequest.GetRequestStream())
myRequest.Write(soapBody)
myRequest.Close() ' App hangs if close is not here
' 500 Error is generated when viewing default.aspx in browser at the following line.  Why?  Not even sure if this is the best way.
Dim webResponse As System.IO.StreamReader = New System.IO.StreamReader(objRequest.GetResponse().GetResponseStream())
Dim receiveStream As String = ""
While Not webResponse.EndOfStream
receiveStream += webResponse.ReadLine()
End While
webResponse.Close()
Response.Write(receiveStream)
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Here is the web service itself:
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Imports System.Web
Imports System.Web.Services
Imports System.Web.Services.Description
Imports System.Web.Services.Discovery
Imports System.Web.Services.Protocols
' To allow this Web Service to be called from script, using ASP.NET AJAX, uncomment the following line.
' <System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService()> _
<WebService(Namespace:="http://betasite.com")> _
<System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService()> _
<WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo:=WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)> _
<Global.Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DesignerGenerated()> _
Public Class WebService_BulkData
    Inherits System.Web.Services.WebService
    <WebMethod(EnableSession:=True)> _
    Public Function XMLServiceData() As XMLDataBlock
 ' Prepopulate with values to send something back by default and keep it simple
        Return New XMLDataBlock With {.DBstoryid = 1, .DBstoryimagesmall = "/somefolder/default_thumb.jpg", .DBstoryimagelarge = "2big.gif", .DBstoryurl = "http://www.site2.com/", .DBstoryemail = "none yet", .DBstoryphone = "111-456-7890", .DBstorywriter = "The pollman 2", .DBstoryinstitution = "ABC 2", .DBstorytitle = "2 - Session Detected", .DBstorycontent = "2 - Serving Custom Data.", .DBstoryfullcontent = "2- The entire text of the content."}
    End Function
End Class
Public Class XMLDataBlock
    Private _DBstoryid As Integer
    Private _DBstoryimagesmall As String
    Private _DBstoryimagelarge As String
    Private _DBstoryurl As String
    Private _DBstoryemail As String
    Private _DBstoryphone As String
    Private _DBstorywriter As String
    Private _DBstoryinstitution As String
    Private _DBstorytitle As String
    Private _DBstorycontent As String
    Private _DBstoryfullcontent As String
    Public Property DBstoryid() As Integer
        Get
            Return _DBstoryid
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Integer)
            _DBstoryid = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Public Property DBstoryimagesmall() As String
        Get
            Return _DBstoryimagesmall
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _DBstoryimagesmall = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Public Property DBstoryimagelarge() As String
        Get
            Return _DBstoryimagelarge
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _DBstoryimagelarge = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Public Property DBstoryurl() As String
        Get
            Return _DBstoryurl
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _DBstoryurl = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Public Property DBstoryemail() As String
        Get
            Return _DBstoryemail
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _DBstoryemail = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Public Property DBstoryphone() As String
        Get
            Return _DBstoryphone
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _DBstoryphone = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Public Property DBstorywriter() As String
        Get
            Return _DBstorywriter
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _DBstorywriter = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Public Property DBstoryinstitution() As String
        Get
            Return _DBstoryinstitution
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _DBstoryinstitution = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Public Property DBstorytitle() As String
        Get
            Return _DBstorytitle
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _DBstorytitle = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Public Property DBstorycontent() As String
        Get
            Return _DBstorycontent
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _DBstorycontent = value
        End Set
    End Property
    Public Property DBstoryfullcontent() As String
        Get
            Return _DBstoryfullcontent
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _DBstoryfullcontent = value
        End Set
    End Property
End Class
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Web Site Solution:
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I had VS.Net 3.5 generate the .discomap, .disco, .wsdl, .svcinfo, .svcmap files for me by using it to locate the services available to the project.  Here is a break-down of what was auto-added:
/App_Code
---> WebService_BulkData.vb (the web service code you saw above)
/App_Data
/App_WebReferences
---> /localhost
--------> WebService_BulkData.discomap
--------> WebService_BulkData.disco
--------> WebService_BulkData.wsdl
---> /ServiceReference
--------> Reference.svcmap
--------> configuration.svcinfo
--------> WebService_BulkData.disco
--------> WebService_BulkData.wsdl
Default.aspx
Web.Config
WebService_BulkData.asmx
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Here's the question I had again (so you don't have to scroll all the way up):
=====================================================
1.  How do I call a web service (the function to call is "WebService_BulkData") so that my aspx page will send it a SOAP request and print out the web service response data to the page?  The aspx page AND the web service are part of the SAME web site project.  The web site project is being developed on a beta server (not locally stored on a computer and then uploaded).
Man, that sure sounds simple, doesn't it?
 

Is there a reason that you don't simply put the contents of the web method in an assembly and reference it from the web page and the web service?