Consume a SOAP web service without relying on the app.config

The settings in <system.ServiceModel> in the app.config file will tell the component how to connect to the external web service. The xml is simply a textual representation of the necessary classes and enumerations required to make the default connection to the web service.

For example, this is the code that was generated for the web service that I added:

<system.serviceModel>
 <bindings>
  <basicHttpBinding>
   <binding name="MyServicesSoap" closeTimeout="00:01:00" openTimeout="00:01:00"
     receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:01:00" allowCookies="false"
     bypassProxyOnLocal="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
     maxBufferSize="65536" maxBufferPoolSize="524288" maxReceivedMessageSize="65536"
     messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8" transferMode="Buffered"
     useDefaultWebProxy="true">
     <readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="8192" maxArrayLength="16384"
       maxBytesPerRead="4096" maxNameTableCharCount="16384" />
     <security mode="None">
      <transport clientCredentialType="None" proxyCredentialType="None"
        realm="" />
      <message clientCredentialType="UserName" algorithmSuite="Default" />
     </security>
    </binding>
   </basicHttpBinding>
  </bindings>
 <client>
  <endpoint address="http://services.mycompany.com/WebServices/MyServices.asmx"
    binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="MyServicesSoap"
    contract="MyServices.MyServicesSoap" name="MyServicesSoap" />
 </client>
</system.serviceModel>

This can be translated to code like so:

    'Set up the binding element to match the app.config settings '
    Dim binding = New BasicHttpBinding()
    binding.Name = "MyServicesSoap"
    binding.CloseTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1)
    binding.OpenTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1)
    binding.ReceiveTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(10)
    binding.SendTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1)
    binding.AllowCookies = False
    binding.BypassProxyOnLocal = False
    binding.HostNameComparisonMode = HostNameComparisonMode.StrongWildcard
    binding.MaxBufferSize = 65536
    binding.MaxBufferPoolSize = 524288
    binding.MessageEncoding = WSMessageEncoding.Text
    binding.TextEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8
    binding.TransferMode = TransferMode.Buffered
    binding.UseDefaultWebProxy = True

    binding.ReaderQuotas.MaxDepth = 32
    binding.ReaderQuotas.MaxStringContentLength = 8192
    binding.ReaderQuotas.MaxArrayLength = 16384
    binding.ReaderQuotas.MaxBytesPerRead = 4096
    binding.ReaderQuotas.MaxNameTableCharCount = 16384

    binding.Security.Mode = BasicHttpSecurityMode.None
    binding.Security.Transport.ClientCredentialType = HttpClientCredentialType.None
    binding.Security.Transport.ProxyCredentialType = HttpProxyCredentialType.None
    binding.Security.Transport.Realm = ""
    binding.Security.Message.ClientCredentialType = BasicHttpMessageCredentialType.UserName
    binding.Security.Message.AlgorithmSuite = Security.SecurityAlgorithmSuite.Default

    'Define the endpoint address'
    Dim endpointStr = "http://services.mycompany.com/WebServices/MyServices.asmx"
    Dim endpoint = New EndpointAddress(endpointStr)
    'Instantiate the SOAP client using the binding and endpoint'
    'that were defined above'
    Dim client = New MyServicesSoapClient(binding, endpoint)

Usually, when you use the parameterless constructor (i.e. new MyServicesSoapClient()), the settings in the app.config file will be used. However, you can bypass the app.config file by explicitly setting the binding and endpoint values in code and passing those instances into the constructor.