Generic Service Contract - wcf

Question

I need to have a generic Service contract but if I do that I receive this error:
[ServiceContract]
public interface IService<T> where T : MyClass
{
[OperationContract]
void DoWork();
}
The contract name 'x.y' could not be found in the list of contracts implemented by the service 'z.t'.

Answer 1

As long as you use a closed generic for your interface it does work - see below. What you cannot do is to have an open generic as the contract type.
public class StackOverflow_6216858_751090
{
public class MyClass { }
[ServiceContract]
public interface ITest<T> where T : MyClass
{
[OperationContract]
string Echo(string text);
}
public class Service : ITest<MyClass>
{
public string Echo(string text)
{
return text;
}
}
static Binding GetBinding()
{
BasicHttpBinding result = new BasicHttpBinding();
//Change binding settings here
return result;
}
public static void Test()
{
string baseAddress = "http://" + Environment.MachineName + ":8000/Service";
ServiceHost host = new ServiceHost(typeof(Service), new Uri(baseAddress));
host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(ITest<MyClass>), GetBinding(), "");
host.Open();
Console.WriteLine("Host opened");
ChannelFactory<ITest<MyClass>> factory = new ChannelFactory<ITest<MyClass>>(GetBinding(), new EndpointAddress(baseAddress));
ITest<MyClass> proxy = factory.CreateChannel();
Console.WriteLine(proxy.Echo("Hello"));
((IClientChannel)proxy).Close();
factory.Close();
Console.Write("Press ENTER to close the host");
Console.ReadLine();
host.Close();
}
}

Answer 2

Your service contract is not interoperable. It's not possible to expose generics like that via WSDL.
Take a look at this article (link) for a possible workaround.

Answer 3

If you use an servicereference on thee client side generic will fail.
Use the following on client side with generic:
var myBinding = new BasicHttpBinding();
var myEndpoint = new EndpointAddress("");
var myChannelFactory = new ChannelFactory<IService>(myBinding, myEndpoint);
IService gks = myChannelFactory.CreateChannel();