Fetching Image Using WCF REST Service

Objective 

This article will give a very simple and basic explanation of, how to fetch an image using WCF REST service. 

Step 1 

Create a WCF application.  To create a new application File -> New -> Web-> WCF Service Application.

Step 2

Remove all the default code created by WCF. Remove code from IService 1 interface and Service1 class.  Remove the code from Web.Config also. Open Web.Config and remove System.Servicemodel codes. 

Step 3

Right click on Service1.svc  select View markup and add below code 

<%@ ServiceHost Language="C#" Debug="true" Service="FetchingImageinBrowser.Service1" CodeBehind="Service1.svc.cs" Factory="System.ServiceModel.Activation.WebServiceHostFactory" %>

Step 4

Create contract. Operation contract will return Stream. Stream is in the namespace System.IO. By putting WebGet attribute make operation contract  

IService1.cs

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Runtime.Serialization;

using System.ServiceModel;

using System.ServiceModel.Web;

using System.Text;

using System.IO ;

namespace FetchingImageinBrowser

{

    [ServiceContract]

    public interface IService1

    {

        [OperationContract]

        [WebGet(UriTemplate = "GetImage", RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml, BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare)]

        Stream GetImage();

    }  

}

Step 5

Implement service. In service class write the below code.  Using FileStream  open and read the image. Then set outgoing response as image/jpeg using WebOperationContext class. 

Service1.svc.cs

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Runtime.Serialization;

using System.ServiceModel;

using System.ServiceModel.Web;

using System.Text;

using System.IO ;

namespace FetchingImageinBrowser

{

    public class Service1 : IService1

    {

        public Stream GetImage()

        {

            FileStream fs = File.OpenRead(@"D:\a.jpg");

            WebOperationContext.Current.OutgoingResponse.ContentType = "image/jpeg";

            return fs;

        }

    }

}

Step 6

Press F5 to run the application. Append GetImage/ in URL to get the output. 

See the URL 

Conclusion 

In this article, I discussed how to get an image from WCF REST service.  In next articles I will show complete Get and Set image using WCF Rest service.  Thanks for reading.