WCF datacontractserializer Deserialize direction - wcf

I am having trouble understanding how to use the DataContractSerializer in WCF REST
I am using a channel factory like so:
Uri uri = new Uri("http://localhost:50000/people");
WebChannelFactory<IPersonService> chFactory = new WebChannelFactory<IPersonService>(uri);
IPersonService iPerson = chFactory.CreateChannel();
than can call the channel methods directly from the channel like this
List<Person> allPeople = new List<Person>();
allPeople = iPerson.getAll();
This has what I got so far as how to use the DataContractSerializer so I can output the response
MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
<--------------- how to i read iPerson.getAll() into stream? --------->
XmlDictionaryReader reader = XmlDictionaryReader.CreateTextReader(stream, new XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas());
DataContractSerializer dcs = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(Person));
List<Person> allpeople2 = (List<Person>)dcs.ReadObject(reader, true);
reader.Close();
stream.Close();
I am not exactly sure how to put these pieces together to make it all work.

I think you made it a bit complicated...
i would start a new project following this introduction page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd315413.aspx
When you configure the serialization issues on web.config, you just have to declare attributes on your interfaces / classes and you don't have to write a single line of serializing / deserializing code for your objects (unless you need to get customized serialization which in your case not needed)
by the url provided "http://localhost:50000/people", i assumed you are looking for a RESTful service, so just in case you need some more advanced features you can look at that as well: https://github.com/mikeobrien/WcfRestContrib

Related

WCF Change message encoding from Utf-16 to Utf-8

I have a WCF connected service in a .net core application. I'm using the code that is autogenerated taken the wsdl definition.
Currently at the top of the request xml is including this line:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
I can't find a simple way to change this encoding to UTF-8 when sending the request.
Since I could find a configuration option a the request/client objects, I've tried to change the message with following code at IClientMessageInspector.BeforeSendRequest
public object BeforeSendRequest(ref Message request, IClientChannel channel)
{
// Load a new xml document from current request
var xmlDocument = new XmlDocument();
xmlDocument.LoadXml(request.ToString());
((XmlDeclaration)xmlDocument.FirstChild).Encoding = Encoding.UTF8.HeaderName;
// Create streams to copy
var memoryStream = new MemoryStream();
var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(memoryStream);
xmlDocument.Save(xmlWriter);
xmlWriter.Flush();
xmlWriter.Close();
memoryStream.Position = 0;
var xmlReader = XmlReader.Create(memoryStream);
// Create a new message
var newMessage = Message.CreateMessage(request.Version, null, xmlReader);
newMessage.Headers.CopyHeadersFrom(request);
newMessage.Properties.CopyProperties(request.Properties);
return null;
}
But the newMessage object still writes the xml declaration using utf-16. I can see it while debugging at the watch window since.
Any idea on how to accomplish this (should be) simple change will be very apreciated.
Which binding do you use to create the communication channel? The textmessageencoding element which has been contained in the CustomBinding generally contains TextEncoding property.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/configure-apps/file-schema/wcf/textmessageencoding
WriteEncoding property specifies the character set encoding to be used for emitting messages on the binding. Valid values are
UnicodeFffeTextEncoding: Unicode BigEndian encoding
Utf16TextEncoding: Unicode encoding
Utf8TextEncoding: 8-bit encoding
The default is Utf8TextEncoding. This attribute is of type Encoding.
As for the specific binding, it contains the textEncoding property too.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.servicemodel.basichttpbinding.textencoding?view=netframework-4.0
Feel free to let me know if there is anything I can help with.

WCF streaming SQLFileStream by Message Contract

In my WCF service, I try to load a File from MS SQL table which has a FileStream column and I try to pass it as a stream back
responseMsg.DocSqlFileStream = new MemoryStream();
try
{
using (FileStreamDBEntities dbEntity = new FileStreamDBEntities())
{
...
using (TransactionScope x = new TransactionScope())
{
string sqlCmdStr = "SELECT dcraDocFile.PathName() AS InternalPath, GET_FILESTREAM_TRANSACTION_CONTEXT() AS TransactionContext FROM dcraDocument WHERE dcraDocFileID={0}";
var docFileStreamInfo = dbEntity.Database.SqlQuery<DocFileStreamPath>(sqlCmdStr, new object[] { docEntity.dcraDocFileID.ToString() }).First();
SqlFileStream sqlFS = new SqlFileStream(docFileStreamInfo.InternalPath, docFileStreamInfo.TransactionContext, FileAccess.Read);
sqlFS.CopyTo(responseMsg.DocSqlFileStream);
if( responseMsg.DocSqlFileStream.Length > 0 )
responseMsg.DocSqlFileStream.Position = 0;
x.Complete();
}
}
...
I'm wondering whats the best way to pass the SQLFileStream back through a message contract back to take advantage of streaming. Currently I copied the SQLFilEStream to a memory stream because I got an error message in WCF trace which says: Type 'System.Data.SqlTypes.SqlFileStream' cannot be serialized.
In WebApi there is such thing as PushStreamContent it allows delegating all transaction stuff to async lambda, don't know if there is something similar in WCF, but the following approach may be helpful:
http://weblogs.asp.net/andresv/archive/2012/12/12/asynchronous-streaming-in-asp-net-webapi.aspx
You can't stream an SQLFileStream back to the client because it can only be read within the SQL transaction. I think your solution with the MemoryStream is a good way of dealing with the problem.
I had a similar problem and was worried about the large object heap when using a new Memory Stream every time. I came up with the idea of using a temporary file on the disk instead of a memory stream. We are using this solution in several project now and it works really well.
See here for the example code:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/11307324/173711

WCF Routing with Content Transformation

I've implemented a WCF Routing service; I would also like the service (or a similar WCF service) to transform the payload in a prescribed and uniform (content-agnostic) fashion. For example, the payload will always take the form Foo<T> and I would like to pass it on as Bar<T> in all cases. I'm happy for the transformation to be XSLT or programmatic. I don't care what happens to messages received that aren't of the type Foo<T>.
I wish to use WCF as it provides a lot of OOTB functionality (e.g. its support for numerous bindings). It's not practical to implement a WCF service with numerous boilerplate methods to transform each closed generic (Foo<Class1> -> Bar<Class1>; Foo<Class2> -> Bar<Class2>; etc), as this would require recompilation/redeployment every time a new message type was to be routed.
To the best of my knowledge, WCF doesn't handle open generics and WCF Routing doesn't facilitate content transformation OOTB. That said, System.ServiceModel.Routing.RoutingService obviously intercepts WCF calls in some non-specific form, so I was hoping to leverage the same pattern to achieve my goal. Can anyone please provide direction on how to do this (or indicate why it's not possible)?
As I suggested in my comments on the question, there is a solution to this using the IDispatchMessageInspector. Please find below an extremely dumbed-down version of what I ended up writing (easier than me posting the code for 20 classes). If anyone wants a full solution implementing this code in a significantly cleaner and more advanced manner, let me know and I'll put my demo up on CodeProject. For now, I'll presume you're happy with a snippet of the guts.
The Console commands can obvious be removed (they're just so you can debug if you're self-hosting).
public object AfterReceiveRequest(ref Message request, IClientChannel channel, InstanceContext instanceContext)
{
if (request == null || request.IsEmpty)
return null;
Console.WriteLine();
Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Green;
Console.WriteLine(request);
Console.ResetColor();
// Load the request into a document.
XPathDocument document;
MemoryStream stream;
using (stream = new MemoryStream())
{
using (XmlDictionaryWriter writer = XmlDictionaryWriter.CreateTextWriter(stream))
{
request.WriteMessage(writer);
writer.Flush();
stream.Position = 0L;
document = new XPathDocument(stream);
}
}
// Load the XSLT.
XslCompiledTransform transformer = new XslCompiledTransform();
transformer.Load("RequestTransformation.xslt");
// Transform the document.
byte[] transformedDocument;
using (stream = new MemoryStream())
{
transformer.Transform(document, null, stream);
transformedDocument = stream.ToArray();
}
// Construct new request from tranformed document.
stream = new MemoryStream(transformedDocument);
XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(stream);
Message modifiedMessage = Message.CreateMessage(reader, int.MaxValue, request.Version);
modifiedMessage.Properties.CopyProperties(request.Properties);
request = modifiedMessage;
Console.WriteLine();
Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Yellow;
Console.WriteLine(new System.Text.UTF8Encoding(false).GetString(transformedDocument));
Console.ResetColor();
return null;
}

Configuring WCF client and service for use with protobuf-net

I decided to open a new question about this matter, maybe expanding this question, not having found a precise answer about the issue anywhere on the Internet.
I want to use protobuf-net to serialize/deserialize messages exchanged between my WCF client and service. The service is self-hosted in a Windows Service. Both client and service are configured programmatically, using a custom binding very similar to wsHttpBinding. Service reference code is generated using "Add Service Reference" option in Visual Studio. The ORM used on the WCF service is EntityFramework 4 and it's code is generated using EF 4.x POCO Generator. More info about my service configuration can be found in a question I started here (that's where I described that my current serializer is DataContractSerialzizer).
I have only tested protobuf-net with one service operation which returns a list of custom DTOs.
Here is the operation (be advised that I just did a copy-paste of my code to here, there might be some fields named in my domestic language, not English):
public static List<OsobaView> GetListOsobas()
{
Database DB = new Database(); // EF object context
var retValue = DB.Baza.Osoba
.Select(x => new OsobaView
{
ID = x.ID,
Prezime = x.Prezime,
Ime = x.Ime,
Adresa = x.Adresa,
DatumRodjenja = x.DatumRodjenja,
JMBG = x.JMBG
});
return retValue.ToList();
}
Here is the definition of OsobaView class:
[ProtoContract]
public class OsobaView
{
[ProtoMember(1)]
public int ID;
[ProtoMember(2)]
public string Prezime;
[ProtoMember(3)]
public string Ime;
[ProtoMember(4)]
public string Adresa;
[ProtoMember(5)]
public DateTime DatumRodjenja;
[ProtoMember(6)]
public string JMBG;
}
As I am using "Add Service Reference" to generate the reference code, I had to use one of the two work-arounds in order to have my client recognize ProtoContracts and members:
using a shared assembly for DTOs (which is not an ideal solution in my case except for custom DTOs, due to the fact that I pass EF-generated POCOs to the client)
using ProtoPartialMember approach
I used both of them and I used both v1 and v2 of protobuf-net, all solutions yielded similar results which led me to believe my client is not deserializing at all. Read on.
Let's consider cases where I used the ProtoPartialMember approach. At first I used v2. I love the way ProtoOperationBehavior can be used. Here is the service operation to be invoked:
[ProtoBuf.ServiceModel.ProtoBehavior]
public List<OsobaView> GetListOsobas()
{
return OsobaQueries.GetListOsobas();
}
Here is how I replaced DataContractSerializerOperationBehavior with ProtoOperationBehavior for the needed service operation on client side:
OperationDescription op = Service.Proxy.Endpoint.Contract.Operations.Find("GetListOsobas");
if (op != null)
{
DataContractSerializerOperationBehavior dcsBehavior = op.Behaviors.Find<DataContractSerializerOperationBehavior>();
if (dcsBehavior != null)
op.Behaviors.Remove(dcsBehavior);
op.Behaviors.Add(new ProtoBuf.ServiceModel.ProtoOperationBehavior(op));
}
And of course, here is the above mentioned work-around implementation for DTO:
[ProtoPartialMember(1, "ID")]
[ProtoPartialMember(2, "Prezime")]
[ProtoPartialMember(3, "Ime")]
[ProtoPartialMember(4, "Adresa")]
[ProtoPartialMember(5, "DatumRodjenja")]
[ProtoPartialMember(6, "JMBG")]
[ProtoContract]
public partial class OsobaView
{
}
Now when I call this service operation from my client, I get null. But Fiddler disagrees. It clearly says, in response header:
Content-Length: 1301963
Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8
...and in the message body:
<s:Body>
<GetListOsobasResponse xmlns="http://tempuri.org/">
<proto>CkMIpHES .../* REALLY LONG RESPONSE */... IyMDAxOA==</proto>
</GetListOsobasResponse>
</s:Body>
Then I thought, let's try with v1. On the service side, I haven't changed much. I just removed the reference to v2 .DLL and replaced it with a reference to v1 .DLL. On the client side, I had to remove the code to add ProtoOperationBehavior to my service operation behaviors and added the following line instead:
Service.Proxy.Endpoint.Behaviors
.Add(new ProtoBuf.ServiceModel.ProtoEndpointBehavior());
I fired it up, invoked the operation, and this time the result is not null. This time it is a list of blank fields. Again, Fiddler couldn't agree because it again said the same what it said before. The same content length and the same message body.
What's going on here?
P.S. If it's worth anything, here is the WCF configuration:
CustomBinding customBinding = new CustomBinding();
customBinding.CloseTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(10);
customBinding.OpenTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(10);
customBinding.ReceiveTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(10);
customBinding.SendTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(10);
HttpsTransportBindingElement httpsBindingElement = new HttpsTransportBindingElement();
httpsBindingElement.AllowCookies = false;
httpsBindingElement.BypassProxyOnLocal = false;
httpsBindingElement.HostNameComparisonMode = HostNameComparisonMode.StrongWildcard;
httpsBindingElement.MaxBufferPoolSize = 20480000;
httpsBindingElement.MaxBufferSize = 20480000;
httpsBindingElement.MaxReceivedMessageSize = 20480000;
httpsBindingElement.RequireClientCertificate = true;
httpsBindingElement.UseDefaultWebProxy = true;
TransportSecurityBindingElement transportSecurityElement = new TransportSecurityBindingElement();
transportSecurityElement.EndpointSupportingTokenParameters.SignedEncrypted.Add(new UserNameSecurityTokenParameters());
transportSecurityElement.EndpointSupportingTokenParameters.SetKeyDerivation(false);
TransactionFlowBindingElement transactionFlowElement = new TransactionFlowBindingElement();
TextMessageEncodingBindingElement textMessageEncoding = new TextMessageEncodingBindingElement();
textMessageEncoding.MaxReadPoolSize = 20480000;
textMessageEncoding.MaxWritePoolSize = 20480000;
textMessageEncoding.ReaderQuotas = XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas.Max;
ReliableSessionBindingElement reliableSessionElement = new ReliableSessionBindingElement();
reliableSessionElement.ReliableMessagingVersion = ReliableMessagingVersion.WSReliableMessagingFebruary2005;
customBinding.Elements.Add(transportSecurityElement);
customBinding.Elements.Add(transactionFlowElement);
customBinding.Elements.Add(textMessageEncoding);
customBinding.Elements.Add(reliableSessionElement);
customBinding.Elements.Add(httpsBindingElement);
EndpointAddress endpoint = new EndpointAddress(new Uri(ServiceAddress));
Service.Proxy = new BazaService.BazaClient(customBinding, endpoint);
Service.Proxy.ClientCredentials.ClientCertificate.SetCertificate(StoreLocation.CurrentUser, StoreName.My, X509FindType.FindBySubjectName, CertificateSubject);
CustomBehavior behavior = Service.Proxy.Endpoint.Behaviors.Find<CustomBehavior>();
if (behavior == null)
{
Service.Proxy.Endpoint.Behaviors.Add(new CustomBehavior()); // message inspector
}
Service.Proxy.Endpoint.Contract.Behaviors.Add(new CyclicReferencesAwareContractBehavior(true));
Service.Proxy.Endpoint.Behaviors.Add(new ProtoBuf.ServiceModel.ProtoEndpointBehavior());
/* code used for protobuf-net v2
OperationDescription op = Service.Proxy.Endpoint.Contract.Operations.Find("GetListOsobas");
if (op != null)
{
DataContractSerializerOperationBehavior dcsBehavior = op.Behaviors.Find<DataContractSerializerOperationBehavior>();
if (dcsBehavior != null)
op.Behaviors.Remove(dcsBehavior);
op.Behaviors.Add(new ProtoBuf.ServiceModel.ProtoOperationBehavior(op));
} */
Service.Proxy.ClientCredentials.UserName.UserName = LogOn.UserName;
Service.Proxy.ClientCredentials.UserName.Password = LogOn.Password;
Service.Proxy.Open();
EDIT
To provide even more information, I have read what's written there but it didn't help. I have deleted the service reference generated by Visual Studio and created my own, sharing the whole service contract, but nothing has changed.
After concentrating a bit better, I decided to restart the solution from scratch. I created one class library for the EDMX with it's POCOs, one for ServiceContract and DataContracts and one for the actual WCF service implementation. Then I shared those two libraries containing ServiceContract and DataContracts, and POCOs with the WCF client and tried again, which yielded the same results as before. After trying some other operations which didn't use protobuf-net for serialization, turned out they behaved the same as the first one, resulting in empty fields (!).
The thing was that, I screwed my WCF client's .datasource files while refactoring after I decided to use the assembly sharing technique. So this was a typical PEBKAC, it of course works fine when done properly. Great work with protobuf-net, Marc Gravell!

How to edit WCF Message - WCF message interceptors

i'm having some problems implementing my WCF message interceptor. Basically i'm accessing the body contents and performing an xslt tranform over the nodeset to sort it alphabethicaly.
I've tested the XSLT stylesheet and it's working no problems. I write the result of the transform to a MemoryStream object and then attempt to recreate the message from the stream contents.
I examine the resulting stream using either a StreamReader or by loading it into an XmlDocument and i can see the the xml it contains it my expected result from the XSLT transform.
My problem occures when i try to recreate the message! I create an XmlReader based on the stream and use this as my body source for Message.CreateMessage(.....);
I cannot understand why i'm suddenly losing the "correct" contents in the stream when i could examine it and see a couple of statements earlier.
Help very much appreciated!
Full code of the method below:
public object AfterReceiveRequest(ref System.ServiceModel.Channels.Message request, IClientChannel channel, InstanceContext instanceContext)
{
MessageBuffer msgbuf = request.CreateBufferedCopy(int.MaxValue);
Message tmpMessage = msgbuf.CreateMessage();
XmlDictionaryReader xdr = tmpMessage.GetReaderAtBodyContents();
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
_compiledTransform.Transform(xdr,null,ms);
ms.Position = 0;
XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
xmlDoc.Load(ms);
MemoryStream newStream = new MemoryStream();
xmlDoc.Save(newStream);
newStream.Position = 0;
//To debug contents of the stream
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(newStream);
var temp = sr.ReadToEnd();
//At this point the XSLT tranforms has resulted in the fragment we want so all good!
XmlReaderSettings settings = new XmlReaderSettings();
settings.ConformanceLevel = ConformanceLevel.Fragment;
newStream.Position = 0;
XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(newStream,settings);
reader.MoveToContent();
//Reader seems to have lost the correct fragment!!! At least returned message does not contain correct fragment.
Message newMessage = Message.CreateMessage(request.Version, null, reader);
newMessage.Properties.CopyProperties(request.Properties);
request = newMessage;
return request;
}
I think your code works Griff. I've just plugged it into an existing an existing IDispatchMessageInspector implementation and it generated a good (transformed) message. I therefore suspect your problem lies elsewhere.
How are you establishing that the 'losing' the correct contents? Could whatever is inspecting the transformed message be reading the message prior to transformation by mistake?
Unless you are trying to correlate state with the BeforeSendReply method then you should be returning null instead of the request reference.