* WCF : Hosting WCF service in IIS

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• Pls start from the project created in following post : Developing a basic WCF client and service
• Add a class which will be used to store two numbers.

      [DataContract]
      public class Numbers
      {
          private int firstNumber;
          private int secondNumber;
          [DataMember]
          public int FirstNumber
          {
              set
              {
                  firstNumber = value;
              }
              get
              {
                  return firstNumber;
              }
          }
          [DataMember]
          public int SecondNumber
          {
              set
              {
                  secondNumber = value;
              }
              get
              {
                  return secondNumber;
              }
          }
      }

  
  
• Add another method to the contract which takes instance of Numbers and return the total of the two numbers stored in object.

          [OperationContract]
          int AddNum(Numbers numbers);

  
  
• Create a Virtual Directory in IIS say with name as MathService.
  
• Create a text file in this vd with name as MathService.svc

  <% @ServiceHost Service="MathUtility.MathService" %>

  
  
• Create a bin folder in this directory. Add Service library to this folder.
  
• Add web.config to vd where we will add our wcf service config details.

  <configuration>
    <!-- This Section is exclusive for WCF configuration for both service and client -->
    <system.serviceModel>
      <!-- This section is to declare services hosted using this cofig file -->
      <services>
        <!-- This section declares individual service. name=type name which implements service contract -->
        <!-- behaviorConfiguration = name of bahavior config which we will define later -->
        <service name="MathUtility.MathService" behaviorConfiguration="MathServiceBehavior">
          <!-- the actual address where service is exposed -->
          <endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="MathUtility.IMath"></endpoint>
          <!-- The address where metadata is exposed and will be used by Svcutil.exe to generate client classes -->
          <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"></endpoint>
        </service>
      </services>
      <behaviors>
        <serviceBehaviors>
          <!-- The behavior which we mentioned above in <service> section-->
          <behavior name="MathServiceBehavior">
            <!-- Exposing metadata on http. Not mandatory for fuctioning of service if client already has metadata-->
            <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="True"/>
          </behavior>
        </serviceBehaviors>
      </behaviors>
    </system.serviceModel>
  </configuration>

  
  
• Note there is no <host> tag as we mentioned in self-hosted service because IIS with the virtual directory defines the base address of the service.
  
• In this case our service will be hosted at following url : http://<My_Machine>/mathservice/mathservice.svc
  
• Access the above url and you will see a default page generated with information on service.
  
• You can use svcutil to generate the client code as explained in earlier post to build client and test your service.
  
• The address which can be provided to svcutil can be one of following :
  
  
  
  • http://<My_Machine>/mathservice/mathservice.svc?wsdl
  
  
  
  
  • http://<My_Machine>/mathservice/mathservice.svc
  
  
  
  
  • http://<My_Machine>/mathservice/mathservice.svc/mex
  
  
• My console app code which uses generated  client.

  using System;
  using System.Collections.Generic;
  using System.Text;
  using MathUtility;
  
  namespace ClientToIIS
  {
      class Program
      {
          static void Main(string[] args)
          {
              MathClient mathClient = new MathClient();
              Numbers number = new Numbers();
              number.FirstNumber = 1;
              number.SecondNumber = 2;
              Console.WriteLine(mathClient.AddNum(number));
          }
      }
  }
  

  
  
• For simplicity you can trim the generated client side app.config to only following mandatory elements.

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <configuration>
      <system.serviceModel>
          <client>
              <endpoint address="http://<My_Machine>/MathService/MathService.svc"
                  binding="wsHttpBinding" 
                  contract="IMath" >
              </endpoint>
          </client>
      </system.serviceModel>
  </configuration>

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