In this article I will show how to add a WCF service reference to the client and what role does service metadata exchange plays. As I discussed in one of my previous article how to create and host the WCF service in C#. In that article I have created the service without using the WCF service template provided by the visual studio.
In the same article I have created the client proxy using ClientBase class.
In this article I will show how to add the service reference to the client using visual studio. To add the service reference using visual studio the most important thing we should know about the metadata exchange and how to enable it.
- One of the difference between WCFand WebAPI is, WCF’s ability to expose metadata.
- With web api we need to have well documented model so that client can know what it can access.
What is Metadata?
- Metadata is shape and characteristics of a service . What contracts it implements, what data contracts it uses for both request and response. All these are exposed in WSDL using Metadata.
- It can be exposed in couple of different ways.
- Service can be added through “Add service reference” in Visual Studio.
- All the client code gets auto- generated right from the DataContracts, Service contracts and client proxies.
- When we are the client as well as the service developer we should create and share these things manually as I have done in one of my previous article.
- But if we want our service to be referenced and added from the visual studio in that case we should enable metadata exchange as shown in the next section.
Metadata Exposure
As shown in the below figure we have to add the host section. Host section is used to provide a base address where we find the service metadata. The other section which we need to add is the behaviours section in the app.config of the host. The example for both of these is shown in the below figure.
In place of localhost you can provide the IP address of the machine where you want to host the service. I have used localhost as I will be accessing the service from local machine along with the port.
Adding WCF Service Reference to the Client
To add the WCF service reference to the client right click on the references. Click on Add service reference. We will get a window as shown in the figure below.
As you can see in the above figure I have added the base address of the service. Click on the “Go” button. You can see the service is added under services box. Add a service namespace. I have named it as HelloWorldServiceNew.
We can access the service operations on client side as shown in the code below.
HelloWorldServiceNew.PersonData data = new HelloWorldServiceNew.PersonData() { FirstName = "Vikram" };
HelloWorldServiceNew.MyServiceClient client = new HelloWorldServiceNew.MyServiceClient();
Console.WriteLine(client.Hello(data));Conclusion:
In this article I have shown you how to add the service reference using Visual studio. I have also discussed about the metadata exchange and its importance in WCF service.
I have used the service project code from here.