Question

When building an app, it is often deployed in different environments (test, dev, prod), and therefore the endpoint addresses are changing. As the ServiceReferences.ClientConfig is built as a part of Silverlight’s .xap file, its hard to change the endpoints after building the solution, as often is done with web.config.

I’ve searched quite a bit for it, but I cant figure out what is best practice here, so my question is:

What is best practice when it comes to dynamic wcf endpoint address configuration in silverlight?

To clarify, depending on which server the app is on (test,dev, prod) the endpoints change:

  <endpoint
    name="MyService"
    address="http://testserv/MyService.svc"
    binding="basicHttpBinding"
    bindingConfiguration="MybasicHttpBinding"
    contract="MyApp.MyService"
             />

  <endpoint
    name="MyService"
    address="http://prodserv/MyService.svc"
    binding="basicHttpBinding"
    bindingConfiguration="MybasicHttpBinding"
    contract="MyApp.MyService"
             />

In some way, i need the silverlight client to know which one to use, depending on which server its on / which build is compiled.

Answer 1

After reading sLedgem’s post, and some googling, I found the perfect solution to make ServiceReferences act like web.config.

First off:
Create the different files manually;

ServiceReferences.Debug.ClientConfig
ServiceReferences.Release.ClientConfig

You can add your own as well if you have more than the two default configurations in Visual Studio.

Second:
Add the file dependency in the Project.csproj file (Open the project file in a text editor):

  <ItemGroup>
    <None Include="Properties\AppManifest.xml" />
    <Content Include="ServiceReferences.ClientConfig">
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
    <Content Include="ServiceReferences.Debug.ClientConfig">
      <DependentUpon>ServiceReferences.ClientConfig</DependentUpon>
    </Content >
    <Content Include="ServiceReferences.Release.ClientConfig">
      <DependentUpon>ServiceReferences.ClientConfig</DependentUpon>
    </Content >
  </ItemGroup>

Now, when you reload the project, you will see that ServiceReferences.Release.ClientConfig is expandable in the Solution Explorer, and when you expand it, you will see the Release and Debug file.

Third: Add the Transformation rules to the Project file just before the closing </Project>

(again, open it in a text editor)

<!-- To modify your build process, add your task inside one of the targets below and uncomment it. 
  Other similar extension points exist, see Microsoft.Common.targets.   -->
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" />
<Target Name="AfterCompile" Condition="exists('ServiceReferences.$(Configuration).ClientConfig')">
  <!-- Generate transformed ServiceReferences config in the intermediate directory -->
  <TransformXml Source="ServiceReferences.ClientConfig" Destination="$(IntermediateOutputPath)$(TargetFileName).ClientConfig" Transform="ServiceReferences.$(Configuration).ClientConfig" />
  <!-- Force build process to use the transformed configuration file from now on. -->
  <ItemGroup>
    <ServiceReferencesConfigWithTargetPath Remove="ServiceReferences.ClientConfig" />
    <ServiceReferencesConfigWithTargetPath Include="$(IntermediateOutputPath)$(TargetFileName).ClientConfig">
      <TargetPath>$(TargetFileName).ClientConfig</TargetPath>
    </ServiceReferencesConfigWithTargetPath>
  </ItemGroup>
</Target>

What it does is to look in the corresponding servicereferences file, depending on your configuration, and copy / replace code using the same TransformXML library that web.config uses.

Example:

in my ServiceReferences.ClientConfig i have the following code:

  <endpoint name="ICatalogueService" 
            address="address" 
            binding="basicHttpBinding"
            bindingConfiguration="My_basicHttpBinding" 
            contract="Services.ServiceInterfaces.ICatalogueService"/>

ServiceReferences.Release.ClientConfig:

<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
  <system.serviceModel>
    <client>
      <endpoint
        name="ICatalogueService"       
        address="http://server/Services/CatalogueService.svc"
        binding="basicHttpBinding"
        bindingConfiguration="My_basicHttpBinding"
        contract="Services.ServiceInterfaces.ICatalogueService"
        xdt:Transform="Replace" xdt:Locator="Match(name)" />
    </client>
    <extensions />
  </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

As you can see, the endpoint will be replaced, and the match is done on the name attribute.

If you have any questions, let me know 🙂