Question

Continuing to learn WCF, I’m trying to write a small program that would with a click of a button take the work from texbox1 , pass it to ServiceContract and get back its length.

Here’s how far I got.

Form1.cs:

...
wcfLib.Service myService = new wcfLib.Service();

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    textBox2.Text = Convert.ToString( myService.go(textBox1.Text) );
}

...

and the wcf file:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.Text;

namespace wcfLib
{

    [ServiceContract]
    public interface IfaceService
    {
        [OperationContract]
        int wordLen(string word);
    }



    public class StockService : IfaceService
    {
        public int wordLen(string word)
        {
            return word.Length;
        }
    }





    public class Service
    {
        public int go( string wordin )
        {

            ServiceHost serviceHost = new ServiceHost(typeof(StockService), new Uri("http://localhost:8000/wcfLib"));
            serviceHost.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IfaceService), new BasicHttpBinding(), "");

            serviceHost.Open();

            int ret = **///// HOW SHOULD I PASS wordin TO StockService to get word.Length in return?**

            serviceHost.Close();

            return ret;
        }
    }


}

what I can’t figure out right now, is how do I pass the wordin variable above into the ServiceContract?

Answer 1

You need to create the client in your form and call wordLen() directly… only a class that inherits from IfaceService can be called as a WCF service. So:

//  You'll have to create references to your WCF service in the project itself...
//  Right-click your form project and pick 'Add Service Reference', picking 
//  'Discover', which should pick up the service from the service project... else
//  enter http://localhost:8000/wcfLib and hit 'Go'.
//  You'll have to enter a namespace, e.g. 'MyWcfService'... that namespace is
//  used to refer to the generated client, as follows:
MyWcfService.wcfLibClient client = new MyWcfService.wcfLibClient();

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    // You really shouldn't have the client as a member-level variable...
    textBox2.Text = Convert.ToString(client.wordLen(textBox1.Text));
}

If your Service class is meant to host the WCF Service, it needs to be its own executable and running… put the code you have in go() in Main()

Or host your WCF Service in IIS… much easier!

Edit

IIS = Internet Information Services… basically hosting the WCF Service over the web.

To host in IIS, create a new project, “WCF Service Application”. You’ll get a web.config and a default interface and .svc file. Rename these, or add new items, WCF Service, to the project. You’ll have to read up a bit on deploying to IIS if you go that route, but for debugging in Visual Studio, this works well.

To split into two applications, just make the form its own project… the service reference is set through the application’s config file; you just point it to the address of the machine or website, e.g. http://myintranet.mycompany.com:8000/wcflib or http://myserver:8000/wcflib.

Thanks for the vote!