WCF servers and clients without configuration files

WCF servers and clients can be set up using a declarative mechanism in web.config and app.config files. It is also possible to set up WCF servers and clients without using config files. A simple example follows.

For these examples the WCF server and client will be hosted in simple WPF applications.

WCF Server

A reference to the System.ServiceModel assembly / dll is added to link the associated namespaces. Then a ServiceContract is defined:

using System.ServiceModel;

...

[ServiceContract]
public interface IWCFContract
{
    [OperationContract]
    int Add(int value1, int value2);

    [OperationContract]
    int Multiply(int value1, int value2);
}

Next a concrete implementation of the service contract needs to be defined:

public class WCFConcrete : IWCFContract
{
    public int Add(int value1, int value2)
    {
        return (value1 + value2);
    }

    public int Multiply(int value1, int value2)
    {
        return (value1 * value2);
    }
}

Then the service host is programmatically created and the metadata is exposed and endpoints added:

using System.ServiceModel;
using System.ServiceModel.Description;

...

public ServiceHost CreateAndOpenHost()
{
    ServiceHost newHost =
        new ServiceHost(typeof(WCFConcrete),
                        new Uri("http://localhost:8002/SimpleService"));

    // Configure publication of service metadata
    ServiceMetadataBehavior behaviour = new ServiceMetadataBehavior();
    behaviour.HttpGetEnabled = true;
    behaviour.MetadataExporter.PolicyVersion = PolicyVersion.Policy15;
    newHost.Description.Behaviors.Add(behaviour);

    // Add a MEX (metadata exchange) endpoint
    newHost.AddServiceEndpoint(ServiceMetadataBehavior.MexContractName,
                               MetadataExchangeBindings.CreateMexHttpBinding(),
                               "mex");

    // Add an application endpoint using a WSHttpBinding
    newHost.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IWCFContract), new WSHttpBinding(), "");

    // Open the service host
    newHost.Open();

    return newHost;
}

Appropriate permissions will need to be given to the user running the application. This can be achieved by running the following in an elevated / administrator command window:

netsh http add urlacl url=http://+:8002/SimpleService user=DOMAIN\username

This service can now be run. The running service can be verified by browsing to the service in Internet Explorer:

http://localhost:8002/SimpleService

WCF Client

To create the client class run the svcutil.exe (located at C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\{version}\Bin) on the wsdl for the service (while the service is running):

svcutil.exe http://localhost:8002/SimpleService?wsdl

This will create a WCFConcrete.cs (along with a config file which is not needed for this example.) This class file is added to the client project. Again a reference to the System.ServiceModel assembly will need to be added to the client project.

The ChannelFactory is then used to create a client to the service:

using System.ServiceModel;

...

public static IWCFContract CreateWCFClient(String endpointAddress)
{
    IWCFContract result = null;

    // Set up the binding and endpoint.
    WSHttpBinding binding = new WSHttpBinding();
    EndpointAddress endpoint = new EndpointAddress(endpointAddress);

    // Create a channel factory.
    ChannelFactory<IWCFContract> channelFactory =
                  new ChannelFactory<IWCFContract>(binding, endpoint);

    // Create a channel.
    result = channelFactory.CreateChannel();

    return result;
}

With this in place a client can simply be created and used to access the service (when it is running):

...

IWCFContract client = CreateWCFClient("http://localhost:8002/SimpleService");

int addResult = client.Add(2, 3);
int multiplyResult = client.Multiply(2, 3);