Question

So simple in theory, but I have never been a wiz at WCF configuration. What I am trying to do is this: I have a WCF method that matches this signature:

[OperationContract]
[WebInvoke(Method = "POST")]
Stream PostPackets(Stream rawPackets);

All I really care about is getting a byte array from an Android/iPhone/Blackberry/any other type of device, to my wcf service, process the array and then send back a different array of bytes. For all I care, it could look like:

[OperationContract]
[WebInvoke(Method = "POST")]
byte[] PostPackets(byte[] rawPackets);

Though all examples I see seem to use Stream.

I have read many different articles and posts with no straight answer on how to do this outside the context of a file transfer (which is not my intention). Here are the problems I am facing:

1- I assume I need to use webHttpBinding to make this service RESTful. Is this right? If so, can you point me to a sample configuration?

2 – (And this is absolutely what I cannot find anywhere!) I need to be sure that this is not going to be a huge pain for the device developers to consume. Can you show me examples of both Android and iPhone devices consuming a RESTful service AND (very important) how they would send a byte array to my service?

Please forgive my noobiness… WCF configuration is one of those things I don’t get to do every day. Once I get my configuration figured out, I generally move on and never have to touch it until my next project (which could be a very long time). Please help!

UPDATE

My colleague suggested that we use http handlers instead of wcf. Do we really have to resort to that?
e.g.:

public void ProcessPackets (HttpContext context) 

UPDATE 2:

I am wondering, is there any way to do this without JSON? Is there any downside/alternative to posting the array as type “text/plain”?

Answer 1

In the end the solution was as follows. (It was quite simple indeed)

Service side:

[ServiceContract]
public interface IMyService
{
    [OperationContract]
    [WebInvoke(Method = "POST",
        BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Wrapped,
        UriTemplate="TestMethod/")]
    Stream TestMethod(Stream input);

}

public class MyService: IMyService
{
    Stream IMyService.TestMethod(Stream input)
    {
        byte[] buffer = new byte[10000];
        int bytesRead, totalBytesRead = 0;
        this.currentResponseOffset = 0;
        do
        {
            bytesRead = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
            totalBytesRead += bytesRead;
        } while (bytesRead > 0);

        input.Close();

        return new MemoryStream(buffer, 0, totalBytesRead);
    }
}

With a configuration that looks like:

<services>
  <service name="MyService" >
    <host>
      <baseAddresses>
        <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8732/Design_Time_Addresses/MyService/" />
        <add baseAddress="net.tcp://localhost:4504/Design_Time_Addresses/MyService/" />
      </baseAddresses>
    </host>
    <endpoint address="MyTCPService" binding="netTcpBinding" contract="IMyTCPService">
    </endpoint>

    <endpoint address="MyHTTPService" binding="webHttpBinding" behaviorConfiguration="web" contract="IMyService"></endpoint>  

    <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexTcpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" />
    <endpoint address="mex"  binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
    <!--<endpoint binding="mexHttpsBinding" bindingConfiguration="" contract="IMetadataExchange" />-->
  </service>
</services>
<behaviors>
   <endpointBehaviors>
    <behavior name="web">
      <webHttp />
    </behavior>
  </endpointBehaviors>
</behaviors>

I was able to test it out with a .net client, though the whole point of this post was to know how to make it cross platform. I guess we will see soon enough! Thanks @I4V for your help, it was much appreciated.