How to Implemt Streaming IN WCF? - wcf

Question

I am facing the problem while using the WCF to fetching the large amount of data, so I do not want to increase the "maxReceivedMessageSize="65536". So any alternative for that or can I achieve that using streaming. If yes then how ?
Please suggest.

Answer 1

Yes you can stream data in WCF, but WCF has some limitations while working in Streamed mode. So you might like to consider implementing a method that returns chunks of data and calling it multiple times if you don't mind handling it yourself.
Otherwise you can enable Streamed mode in configuration like
<basicHttpBinding>
<binding name="HttpStreaming" maxReceivedMessageSize="67108864"
transferMode="Streamed"/>
</basicHttpBinding>
<!-- an example customBinding using Http and streaming-->
<customBinding>
<binding name="Soap12">
<textMessageEncoding messageVersion="Soap12WSAddressing10" />
<httpTransport transferMode="Streamed" maxReceivedMessageSize="67108864"/>
</binding>
</customBinding>
And return a Stream object from your Contract method. This way the data will be transferred as you read the stream object.
interface IRemoteFileService
{
Stream OpenFile(string serverPath);
}
if your data is in a stream like a when you transfer a file. you just open the stream and return it. otherwise you can use a MemoryStream and DataContractSerializer to serialize almost any object tree.
for details check this and this
While this sounds simple there are complications and limitations for Streamed mode. If you just need a simple way to bypass the size limits for a big object transfer, Consider sending the object partially on multiple calls.