title: WebMethod response format
body: <p>I recently saw a jQuery example where a POST was made to "Default.aspx/Test", where Test was a WebMethod in Default.aspx, and the content-type for the request was "application/json".</p>
  
  <p>The reply from the WebMethod was in JSON. I always thought WebMethods returned SOAP responses, but if I'm interpreting this code correctly, like I said, the WebMethod returns JSON.</p>
  
  <p>Is this correct? Do WebMethods return a response in the format of the request content-type? Since when has this been possible? Always? Or is this because I have ASP.NET AJAX installed? If so, what namespaces can I disassemble to see how this works?</p>
  
  <p>I've only used WebMethods for .NET to .NET communication, which has been in SOAP, and always written custom code to respond in the correct format (SOAP, JSON, or XML), based on a request query string parameter specifying the desired format. I always thought WCF was required for this kind of metaformat functionality.</p>