SoapDataSource SelectURL needs full server name

Question

I'm using a DataFormWebPart with an embedded SoapDataSource. The problem is that SoapDataSource needs to have the full url of the site (http://server/_vti_bin/Myservice.asmx) to work. This makes moving between servers very tricky, as I have to manually update the fields each time. Also as the site collection is to be extended into internal and internet zones this adds another wrinkle. So far I have tried, <% $SPURL:~sitecollection/...%> which does give me a relative URL, and plain ~site/~sitecollection are not replaced. Is there away to embed SPCurrent.Web.URL into the webpart that isn't discarded by SharePoint designer? What other methods are there?

I'm trying to avoid coding this (Which is easily done) so I can avoid adding complexity when none should be needed.

Answer 1

I was exploring this last week and have not found any way to make the URL dynamic. I tried the same methods. The only viable solution I found was to create it with jQuery and SPServices, as SPServices uses the current site as the default when hitting the web services.

This comes with the detriment that everything is done client side rather than server side.

Answer 2

There is a JavaScript Variable on SharePoint pages called _spPageContextInfo. Read more about it here: http://blog.tedpattison.net/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=9

_spPageContextInfo.siteServerRelativeUrl gives you the relative url of the current Site Collection. _spPageContextInfo.webServerRelativeUrl gives you the relative url of the current web.

Combine that with window.location.href and with a few string operations you can get the current url.