How can I provide Metadata from my WCF service for consumption in Breeze - wcf

Question

I am trying to adapt an existing WebApi/MVC4 app to use Breeze lookups.
Currently I retrieve my DTOs via
[HttpGet]
public IQueryable<ThingDto> GetThings()
{
var channelFactory = ThingServiceConfiguration.CreateChannelFactory();
_serviceFactory = () => new WcfProxy<IThingService>(channelFactory.CreateChannel());
var client = _serviceFactory();
IQueryable<ThingDto> result = client.Execute(p => p.GetThings()).OrderBy(x => x.Name).AsQueryable();
return result;
}
I'm not sure how I implement this method Metadata()
public string Metadata()
{
//normally something like this if using a EF DataContext
// return _someContextProvider.Context.Things;
}
How I setup the WCF config
public class ThingServiceConfiguration
{
const string AppSettingKey = "ThingServiceUrl";
public static ChannelFactory<IThingService> CreateChannelFactory()
{
// var serviceUrl = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[AppSettingKey];
var serviceUrl = "http://localhost:86/ThingService.svc";
var binding = new BasicHttpBinding(BasicHttpSecurityMode.None)
{
MaxReceivedMessageSize = 200000000,
SendTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(2),
ReceiveTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(2)
};
var address = new EndpointAddress(serviceUrl);
return new ChannelFactory<IThingService>(binding, address);
}
}
Could this metadata be provided with the WCF call into the Metadata() property (by providing arguments through BasicHttpBinding ?
Many thanks!

Answer 1

You can return Breeze 'native' metadata simply by returning the metadata in json form. Something like this:
[HttpGet]
public String Metadata() {
var folder = Path.Combine(HttpRuntime.AppDomainAppPath, "App_Data");
// metadata.json is the name of a file containing your metadata - pick any file name you like.
var fileName = Path.Combine(folder, "metadata.json");
var jsonMetadata = File.ReadAllText(fileName);
return jsonMetadata;
}
where the syntax of the metadata file is described here: Breeze metadata format.