Developing a WCF Service Library and Hosting it with a Custom App Using VS2K8 - Creating a WCF Service Library

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The following are the steps required to create a WCF Service Library:

• Open Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2

• Go to File || New Project

• In the "New Project" dialog box, open "Visual Basic" project types and select WCF. The respective templates for WCF will be shown on the right side.

• Select the "WCF Service Library" template.

• Provide  "WCFSampleService" as the name and provide the proper path as the location.

• Make sure that ".NET Framework 3.5" is selected at the top.

• Once everything looks like the following (fig 01), click OK.

• Rename "IService1.vb" to "IProductService.vb."

• Rename "Service1.vb" to "ProductService.vb."

Creating a WCF Service Library: application configuration

As we created a WCF Service Library (instead of a WCF Service Application), Visual Studio adds an "app.config" file (as opposed to a "web.config" file in a WCF Service Application) to the solution. Modify the "app.config" file to match the following:

<system.serviceModel>

<services>

<service name="NorthwindService.ProductService"
behaviorConfiguration="NorthwindService.ProductServiceBehavior">

<host>

<baseAddresses>

<add baseAddress="http://localhost:8181/ProductService" />

</baseAddresses>

</host>

<!-- Service Endpoints -->

<!-- Unless fully qualified, address is relative to base address supplied
above -->

<endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding"
contract="NorthwindService.IProductService" />

<!-- Metadata Endpoints -->

<!-- The Metadata Exchange endpoint is used by the service to describe
itself to clients. -->

<!-- This endpoint does not use a secure binding and should be secured or
removed before deployment -->

<endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding"
contract="IMetadataExchange" />

</service>

</services>

<behaviors>

<serviceBehaviors>

<behavior name="NorthwindService.ProductServiceBehavior">

<!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, set the value below to
false and remove the metadata endpoint above before deployment -->

<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="True"/>

<!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes, set
the value below to true. Set to false before deployment to avoid
disclosing exception information -->

<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="True" />

</behavior>

</serviceBehaviors>

</behaviors>

</system.serviceModel>

Now it is time to specify the connection string. Using Solution Explorer, right click on project and go to properties (Fig 02):

Within the project properties, open the Settings tab and add a new setting with the name "cnNorthwind," "Type" as "String", "Scope" as "Application" and "Value" as required connection string (to connect to database) as shown below (Fig 03):

Next: Creating a WCF Service Library: source code >>
 

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