WCF with interfaces as parameters - wcf

Please don't respond with ServiceKnownType, as I don't know what the concrete implementation will be.
The interface is designed to be created from an ioc container. I created a ServiceHostFactory that adds a IInstanceProvider that grabs the service from the container.
What I want know is to be able to add IInstanceProviders to the client side calls for the parameters.
var factory = new WebChannelFactory<ITestService>(new Uri("http://localhost:30646/TestService.svc"));
var service = factory.CreateChannel();
var result = service.TestMethod("sdf");
This is how I am creating proxy on the client side. Imagine I have a return type as ICustomType.
Is there a way I can tell the factory above to use a certain instance provider with trying to create interfaces? That way, I can call my container for the instance.

There is no IInstanceProvider model on the client side - it is for creating the services instances when they are required.
You could derive from ChannelFactory and do your IoC resolution in there
btw: You do know that ServiceKnownType can take a method rather than a type which can return the valid known types at runtime?

Related

how generate wcf proxy classes from many services in same namespace

I have two services that use same library business model. For generation
proxy classes I get two classes Service1.A and Service2.A, but A is one type of data. I want get one class. Is it possibly. How do it?
There are two ways to call WCF service. Proxy and Channel.
In Proxy, you can add WCF service to your project with Add Service Reference ... In this way, proxy classes generated automatically. You can't use your shared classes. Because, shared classes generated again as proxy.
If you can use shared classes, you must choose Channel way. In channel, add reference ServiceContact (interface) and DataContract to the client project.
var address = new EndpointAddress("..."); // Service address
var binding = new BasicHttpBinding(); // Binding type
var channel = ChannelFactory<IService>.CreateChannel(binding, address);
var result = channel.MethodName(string param1); // Method name and parameters can be changed.

WCF Callback implementation function never gets called

I am designing a WCF service with callback, but my implementation of the callback function never gets called. And I am confused about the generated service proxy, so please help.
Here is the scenario: in the server side, I defined the service interface IMyService and callback interface IMyServiceCallback, I also implemented the IMyService in the server project. Besides the server project, I surely have another client project, to which I added the service reference in VS. And I implemented the IMyServiceCallback interface on the client side. So here comes the problem: when I am debugging it, the function never goes into my implementation of IMyServiceCallback and of course the desired result never comes out.
And this is I where I got confused: when I added the service reference in the client side, it actually generated three interfaces on the local: IMyService, IMyServiceCallback, and IMyServiceChannel plus the client proxy class. And in my local implementation of IMyServiceCallback, I declared the class to implement the local IMyServiceCallback interface, not the one from service side. Could this be the problem? Why is there two declarations of the interface under different projects(and hence different namespaces)? The reason I implement the client side interface is, if I implemented from the server side interface, it would give the error: "InstanceContext provided to the ChannelFactory contains a UserObject that does not implement the CallbackContractType error" when I tried to call the service. And another confusing part is, on the server side if I declare the callback interface name as IMyCallback, or anything else, instead of IMyServiceCallback, the generated interface on the client side would still be IMyServiceCallback, which is the name of the service interface plus the suffix "Callback". And in this situation I also got the "InstanceContext provided to the ChannelFactory contains a UserObject that does not implement the CallbackContractType error".
I guess there is something that I misunderstood about the "add service reference" and how I should implement the interface(which one to implement). Could anyone help me? Thanks!
Updated:
I somehow fixed the problem. Firstly, the two declarations is fine is desired. The local client will need to implement the local interface, which is generated when adding the service reference. And my problem was that I also defined a DataContract but the generated reference file didn't have it. It could either because I had added the assembly of the service project as reference(somebody said in this case add service reference will not generate the Datacontract) or because I was missing DataMember attribute. But anyway, after I fixed both parts, the function is working now.
When you "Add Service Reference" and generate a proxy, it is totally separate from your service implementation. Remember, you may be consuming a service that you have not written and do not have access to the service source code.
The client code should use the client generated interfaces. If you change your service, you need to regenerate the proxy.
If you find this too messy, and you know you will always control both ends, you can share the service interfaces in a common assembly and generate a proxy class at runtime using DuplexChannelFactory.CreateChannel().
As for your problem, I can only assume you are not registering your callback properly. This is covered here.
if you want publish , you must implement IMyServiceCallback and IMyService together in same project.
if only subscribe , you must implement IMyServiceCallback interface
I fixed the issue when my callback instruction was embedded in a function call.
I learned that placing the callback in just a method that does not return a result works fine.
However, when the callback instruction is placed within a function I ran into timeout issue.
I resolved it by using a backgroundworker thread within the function being invoked:
public static IMyServiceCallback Callback;
.
.
.
TaskStateData taskStateData = GetSomeData();
BackgroundWorker backgroundWorker = new BackgroundWorker();
backgroundWorker.DoWork += (se, ev) =>
{
Tuple<OperationContext, TaskStateData> data = ev.Argument as Tuple<OperationContext, TaskStateData>;
var operationContext = data.Item1;
if (operationContext != null)
{
Callback = operationContext.GetCallbackChannel<IMyServiceCallback>();
Callback.OnCallBack();
}
};
Tuple<OperationContext, TaskStateData> payload = new Tuple<OperationContext, TaskStateData>(OperationContext.Current, taskStateData);
backgroundWorker.RunWorkerAsync(payload);

Dependency Injection with WCF proxy

I have a service (Service1) that uses another serice (Service2). I am using Dependency injection for both services and need to inject the proxy for Service2 into Service1.
I am unsure how to deal with the fact that the proxy is not a simple class of type IService2 but a proxy inheriting from ClientBase as well. Obviously my Service1 implementation needs to open the proxy and should also close it after use or abort it if an exception occurs but if I am just injecting an instance of IService2 then I cannot do this (without casting) because the Open, Close and Abort methods are on the base class whilst my operations are on the interface.
When it comes to testing Service1, I would expect to mock just the interface but if the Service1 implementation expect Open, Close and Abort methods, then this is tricky. In the past, I have done something hacky like this but there must be a better way!
var proxyBase = _service2 as ClientBase;
if (proxyBase != null)
{
proxyBase.Open();
}
_service2.DoOperation("blah"); //the actual operation
if (proxyBase != null)
{
proxyBase.Close();
}
// repeat for Abort in exception handler(s).
What are other people doing?
Thanks
The auto generated class that you get for adding a service reference for a WCF service is implemented as a partial class. What I do is create a another partial file for that class and implement an interface that exposed those methods, and then use that interface where you would normally use the ClientBase or WCF interface
public partial class Service2 : IClientService2
{}
If IClientService2 has the Abort and Close methods that match the ClientBase methods it should be all you need.
public interface IClientService2 : IService2 // where IService2 is the WCF service interface
{
void Abort();
void Close();
}
I suggest injecting a factory to construct WCF services rather than injecting the proxy itself since when a fault occurs then the channel is no longer able to be used and you will need to construct a new proxy.
IClientService2 proxy = _service2Factory.Create();
proxy.Open();
proxy.DoOperation("blah"); //the actual operation
proxy.Close();
Your interface is poluted because of the requirements imposed by Wcf. If you were not using wcf you would not have an Open and Close method. In an ideal world the interface should look the same as if the service was in process.
Have you chosen your IoC container yet? If you haven't I would consider looking at Windsor. This will allow you to maintain a clean interface and either inject the service as an in process object or a wcf proxy.
container = new WindsorContainer().AddFacility<WcfFacility>();
container.Register(Component
.For<IClientService2>()
.ActAs(DefaultClientModel)
.On(WcfEndpoint.FromConfiguration("YourServiceNameInConfiguration")))
.LifeStyle.Transient);
The WcfFacility will do all the opening and closing of the channel for you.
I ended up using this approach which uses Castle Dynamic Proxy to intercept calls and handle WCF specifics. It works really well and allows the class where the proxy is injected to treat it like a normal class / interface. This class is then totally unit testable by mocking the service contract interface.

WCF and Unity - Dependency Injection

I'm trying to hock up WCF with dependency injection. All the examples that I have found is based on the assumptions that you either uses a .svc (ServiceHostFactory) service or uses app.config to configure the container. Other examples is also based on that the container is passed around to the classes.
I would like a solution where the container is not passed around (not tightly coupled to Unity). Where I don't uses a config file to configure the container and where I use self-hosted services.
The problem is - as I see it - that the ServiceHost is taking the type of the service implementation as a parameter so what different does it do to use the InstanceProvider?
The solution I have come up with at the moment is to register the ServiceHost (or a specialization) an register a Type with a name ( e.g. container.RegisterInstance<Type>("ServiceName", typeof(Service);).
And then container.RegisterType<UnityServiceHost>(new InjectionConstructor(new ResolvedParameter<Type>("ServiceName"))); to register the ServiceHost.
Any better solutions out there? I'm I perhaps way of in my assumptions.
Best regards,
Michael
Use Constructor Injection to wire up your service implementation, just like you would with any other class.
Here's a writeup on how to make WCF understand Constructor Injection.
The example in that answer demonstrates Poor Man's Injection, but you can extrapolate from it and set up your UnityContainer instance in the ServiceHostFactory instead of a hard-coded dependency.
You pass the container instance all the way to the custom IInstanceProvider. Now you can use the container in the GetInstance method:
public object GetInstance(InstanceContext instanceContext)
{
var serviceType = instanceContext.Host.Description.ServiceType;
return this.container.Resolve(serviceType);
}

How do I initialize a Service Object when Self-Hosting in WCF

I am hosting a service within a Windows Service.
The following snippet instantiates the ServiceHost object:
Host = new ServiceHost(typeof(Services.DocumentInfoService));
The DocumentInfoService class implements a contract interface that has methods that invoke business objects requiring initialization (actually a connection string). Ideally, I'd like the hosting process to get the connection string from the config file and pass it to a constructor for my service object, DocumentInfoService, which would hold onto it and use it to pass to business objects as needed.
However, the ServiceHost constructor takes a System.Type object -- so instances of DocumentInfoService are created via the default constructor. I did note that there is another constructor method for ServiceHost that takes an object instance -- but the docs indicate that is for use with singletons.
Is there a way for me to get to my object after it is constructed so that I can pass it some initialization data?
ServiceHost will create the service instances based on the binding and behaviors configured for the endpoint. There's no particular point in time, where you can rely there is a service instance. Hence, ServiceHost does not expose the service instances.
What you could do is add code to your service object constructor to read the relevant configuration values itself through the ConfigurationManager class.
Of course, if you don't keep your configuration in the app.config, that won't work for you. Alternative approach would be to have a well-known singleton object that the service instances access when created to get the necessary configuration.
And there's also the option of creating your own ServiceHost or your own ServiceHostFactory to control the service instantiation explicitly. This would give you acess to the new service instances at the moment of creation. I would stay away from that option though. It's not worth the effort for your scenario.
Implement your own ServiceHost. See also http://hyperthink.net/blog/servicehostfactory-vs-servicehostfactorybase/