Question

I am having an issue with a WCF service working correctly. I am trying to create a duplex service but evertime I try to return a custom datatype it breaks the client side.

If I remove GetTestData everything works fine. When I add it everything breaks on the client side. It seems like I can fix it by unchecking “Reuse types in referenced assemblies”, but I am not sure if there are negative side effects in doing this.

Here is the code

ITestService.cs

namespace MyApp.Server
{
    [ServiceContract(Namespace = "http://www.mysite.net", CallbackContract = typeof(IDuplexTestClient))]
    public interface ITestService
    {
        [OperationContract]
        string Hello();

        [OperationContract]
        TestData GetTestData();
    }

    public interface IDuplexTestClient
    {
        [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true)]
        void TestCallback(string message);
    }
}

TestService.cs

namespace MyApp.Server
{
    [ServiceBehavior(Namespace = "http://www.mysite.net")]
    public class TestService : ITestService, ICrossDomainPolicyResponder
    {
        public string Hello()
        {
            return "Hello";
        }

        public TestData GetTestData()
        {
            return new TestData();
        }

        #region ICrossDomainPolicyResponder Members
        public Stream GetSilverlightPolicy()
        {
            string result = @"<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""utf-8""?>
                <access-policy>
                    <cross-domain-access>
                        <policy>
                            <allow-from http-request-headers=""*"">
                                <domain uri=""*""/>
                            </allow-from>
                            <grant-to>
                                <resource path=""/"" include-subpaths=""true""/>
                            </grant-to>
                        </policy>
                    </cross-domain-access>
                </access-policy>";
            return StringToStream(result);

        }

        public Stream GetFlashPolicy()
        {
            string result = @"<?xml version=""1.0""?>
                            <!DOCTYPE cross-domain-policy SYSTEM ""http://www.macromedia.com/xml/dtds/cross-domain-policy.dtd"">
                            <cross-domain-policy>
                                <allow-access-from domain=""*"" />
                            </cross-domain-policy>";
            return StringToStream(result);
        }

        private Stream StringToStream(string result)
        {
            WebOperationContext.Current.OutgoingResponse.ContentType = "application/xml";
            return new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(result));
        }
        #endregion
    }
}

TestData.cs

namespace MyApp.SDK 
{
    [DataContract(Namespace = "http://www.mysite.net")]
    public class TestData
    {
        [DataMember]
        public string TestString { get; set; }
    }
}

Answer 1

I’m still not 100% sure what is going on here but I found a solution that works for me. I am able to use the “Reuse types in specified referenced assemblies” to get the functionality I need. This fixed the problem but still allows me to share the MyApp.SDK classes between the client and server.