Question

I have a custom stream that I am using with WCF for large BLOBs from the database. It reads the data in chunks.

What is the best way to handle the connection for the stream? Should I just open it at the construction or open/close it with each chuck read?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I would load the entire blob into a memory stream then let WCF handle the Streaming and Chunking. You can enable streaming in the transportBindings, or look into using MTOM.

[ServiceContract] public class ContentService {   [OperationContract]   public Stream GetBlob(int id)   {     byte[] myBlob = GetBytesFromDatabase();     return new MemoryStream(myBlob);   } } 

If you using SQL Server 2008 try sending the stream directly through to the WCF Client

[ServiceContract] public class ContentService {   [OperationContract]   public Stream GetBlob(int id)   {     return GetStreamFromDatabase(id);   } } 

See this link on Streaming Messages with WCF