Question

Can I have a single service with multiple endpoints and multiple contracts using generics. I am running into an issue where the metadata cannot be created (It hink it may just be a config issue and not sure what my base host address would need to look like):

    namespace WCFSingleService
    {
        // NOTE: You can use the "Rename" command on the "Refactor" menu to change the interface name "IService1" in both code and config file together.
        [ServiceContract]
        public interface ISingleService<T>
        {
            [OperationContract]
            T GetData(T item);

         }   

    }

namespace WCFSingleService
{
    [ServiceContract(Name = "User")]
    public interface IUserSingleService: ISingleService<User>
    {
    }
}

namespace WCFSingleService
{
    [ServiceContract(Name = "Some")]
    public interface ISomeSingleService: ISingleService<Some>
    {
    }
}

public partial class SingleService : IUserSingleService
    {
        public User GetData(User item)
        {
            //Do something
        }



    }

public partial class SingleService : ISomeSingleService
    {
        public Some GetData(Some item)
        {
            //Do something
        }



    }

Is this possible and what would the configuration for this service look like? Also, would I be able to consume the service from, say, an AJAX client? I guess I would since I am not trying to pass in a type to the contract and each contract would have its own endpoint, right? Thanks!

Here is my current configuration:

<system.serviceModel>
    <services>
      <service name="WCFSingleService.SingleService" behaviorConfiguration="WCFSingleService.ServiceBehavior">
        <host>
          <baseAddresses>
            <add baseAddress = "http://localhost:8732/Design_Time_Addresses/WCFSingleService/SingleService" />            
          </baseAddresses>
        </host>
        <!-- Service Endpoints -->
        <!-- Unless fully qualified, address is relative to base address supplied above -->
        <endpoint address="User" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="WCFSingleService.IUserSingleService"/>
        <endpoint address="Some" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="WCFSingleService.ISomeSingleService"/>




        <!-- Metadata Endpoints -->
        <!-- The Metadata Exchange endpoint is used by the service to describe itself to clients. --> 
        <!-- This endpoint does not use a secure binding and should be secured or removed before deployment -->
        <endpoint contract="IMetadataExchange" binding="mexHttpBinding" address="mex"/>
      </service>
    </services>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior name="WCFSingleService.ServiceBehavior">
          <!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, 
          set the value below to false and remove the metadata endpoint above before deployment -->
          <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="True"/>
          <!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes, 
          set the value below to true.  Set to false before deployment 
          to avoid disclosing exception information -->
          <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="False" />
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
  </system.serviceModel>

UPDATE:
Well, I was tring to figure out why my servcie wasn;t wroking, once I turned debugging on, that opened up the error dorr. DUH! Anyway, the issue I was having had to do with the same method name being created for both services. So, does anyone know of a way to have WCF rename the method names if multiple services impelement the same interface? Is there a decoration I can put on a method inside one of the implementations to make it appear different?

Answer 1

I figured out pretty much what I wanted to accomplish. Basically, I could still setup my code to use generics while having one service. I got the idea for the single service here. I then realized that I needed to specify the ServiceContract on the partial class SingleService (Not the interfaces themselves) and decorate my implemented methods with the OperationContract(Name=”TheExposedNameOfTheMethod”). Here is some of the code:

public interface ISingleService<T>
    {
        //[OperationContract]
        T GetData(T item);


    }


public interface IUserSingleService: ISingleService<User>
    {
    }

public interface IOtherSingleService: ISingleService<Other>
    {
    }

[ServiceContract]
    public partial class SingleService : IUserSingleService
    {
        [OperationContract(Name = "GetDataUser")]
        public User GetData(User item)
        {
            switch(item.MessageCommand)
            {
                case "Create":
                    //do stuff to for a User create
                    break;
                case "Update":
                    //do stuff to for a User update
                    break;
                case "Delete":
                    //do stuff to for a User Delete
                    break;
            }

            return item;

        }



    }

//You only need to specifc the ServiceContract attribute in one of the partial classes
        public partial class SingleService : IOtherSingleService
    {
        [OperationContract(Name = "GetDataOther")]
        public Other GetData(Other item)
        {
            ...do something
            return item;

        }



    }

Here is what the endpoint would look like:

<endpoint  binding="basicHttpBinding" name="TheService"
          contract="SingleService" />