How To Create/Consume WCF Services With No Config File

Normally, there are a few steps we have to follow for creating or consuming a WCF service.

• Server side - create a new ServiceHost for new WCF service.
• Client side - make sure the correct client name is setup in client source.
• Make sure - make sure that the .config files of both client/server side are set up properly.

Any spelling error could waste a couple of hours of investigation. I was really really tired of this job until I found some code on stackoverflow recently. Unfortunately, I could not find that thread again. Here I have attached my code instead.

protected Dictionary<Type, object> GetBehaviors(string name)
{
    if (!_behaviorCache.ContainsKey(name))
    {
        BehaviorsSection behaviorData = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("system.serviceModel/behaviors") as BehaviorsSection;
        List<BehaviorExtensionElement> behaviors = new List<BehaviorExtensionElement>();

        if (behaviorData.ServiceBehaviors.ContainsKey(name))
        {
            behaviorData.ServiceBehaviors[name].All(e =>
            {
                behaviors.Add(e);
                return true;
            });
        }

        if (behaviorData.EndpointBehaviors.ContainsKey(name))
        {
            behaviorData.EndpointBehaviors[name].All(e =>
            {
                behaviors.Add(e);
                return true;
            });
        }

        _behaviorCache.Add(name, behaviors.ToDictionary(e => e.BehaviorType, e => createBehavior(e)));
    }

    return _behaviorCache[name];
}

private object createBehavior(BehaviorExtensionElement element)
{
    return element.GetType().GetMethod("CreateBehavior", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic)
            .Invoke(element, new object[0] { });
}

What is it? It creates a list of behaviors by given behavior name, so a ServiceHost could be created as below.

private ServiceHost getServiceHost(Type serviceType, Type interfaceType)
{
    WebServiceAttribute attribute = interfaceType.GetCustomAttribute<WebServiceAttribute>();

    if (attribute == null)
        throw new ArgumentException("WebService attribute is missing");

    string serviceUrl = GetServiceUrl(attribute, "localhost");
    ServiceHost serviceHost = new ServiceHost(serviceType, new Uri(serviceUrl));
    var serviceMetadataBehavior = new ServiceMetadataBehavior();
    serviceHost.Description.Behaviors.Add(serviceMetadataBehavior);

    // add behaviors
    Dictionary<Type, object> behaviors = GetBehaviors(attribute.BehaviorConfiguration);
    behaviors.All(e =>
    {
        serviceHost.Description.Behaviors.Remove(e.Key);
        serviceHost.Description.Behaviors.Add(e.Value as IServiceBehavior);
        return true;
    });

    serviceHost.AddServiceEndpoint(interfaceType, GetBinding(attribute), serviceUrl);
    return serviceHost;
}

If all the information could be fetched from the given attribute, is it enough for service creation? Yes!

public class WebServiceAttribute : Attribute
{
    public string RelativePath { get; set; }
    public Type BaseBinding { get; set; }
    public string CustomBinding { get; set; }
    public string BehaviorConfiguration { get; set; }
    public bool UseCallback { get; set; }

    private static readonly string DEFAULT_BEHAVIOR = "customBehavior";
    private static readonly string DEFAULT_BINDING = "customWsHttpBinding";

    public WebServiceAttribute()
    {
        UseCallback = false;
        BaseBinding = typeof(WSHttpBinding);
        CustomBinding = DEFAULT_BINDING;
        BehaviorConfiguration = DEFAULT_BEHAVIOR;
    }
}

So, how do we use it? Just apply it on web interface, that's all.

[ServiceContract]
[WebService(RelativePath = "/myapp/SimpleService/")]
public interface ISimpleService
{
    [OperationContract]
    void Speak(string words);
}

So, with the help of WebServiceAttribute and the above codes, we are able to create a Service Host via .NET Reflection. Also, it is also possible to create a WCF Service client since this attribute contains all the information for ChannelFactory<> creation.

 

In the attached sample solution (by VS2015), you can find that the class WebServiceServerProber is used to find all available WCF services in a particular module and create ServiceHost for them; while the WebServiceSingleClientProber class is used in the client to create ChannelFactory.

 

We have saved hundreds of lines in .config file in our project. I hope it will help you! Let me know if you have any questions.