How to intercept WCF faults and return custom response instead? - wcf

Question

Consider the following very basic WCF service implementation:
public enum TransactionStatus
{
Success = 0,
Error = 1
}
public class TransactionResponse
{
public TransactionStatus Status { get; set; }
public string Message { get; set; }
}
[ServiceContract]
[XmlSerializerFormat]
public interface ITestService
{
[OperationContract]
TransactionResponse DoSomething(string data);
}
public class TestService : ITestService
{
public TransactionResponse DoSomething(string data)
{
var result = ProcessData(data); // may throw InvalidOperationException
return new TransactionResponse()
{
Status = TransactionStatus.Success,
Message = result
};
}
private string ProcessData(string data)
{
if (data = "foobar")
throw new InvalidOperationException();
return data;
}
}
In the instance that the DoSomething method does throw an InvalidOperationException, I would like to intercept the fault and return a TransactionResponse object, rather than have WCF raise a FaultException with the client. How can I do this without surrounding each method body in a huge try catch statement? Is there some where I can hook into? Can I do this with some sort of attribute or something? An example of how I would like to handle it can be demonstrated using ASP.NET MVC:
public class ApiController : BaseController
{
protected override void OnException(ExceptionContext filterContext)
{
var ex = filterContext.Exception;
var message = HttpContext.IsDebuggingEnabled ? ex.ToString() : ex.Message;
_logger.Error("Error processing request for controller {0}, action {1}",
filterContext.RequestContext.RouteData.Values["controller"],
filterContext.RequestContext.RouteData.Values["action"]);
_logger.Error(ex.ToString());
filterContext.ExceptionHandled = true;
filterContext.Result = ToXml(new ApiResult(false)
{
Message = message
});
}
// ...
}
Using the above method in MVC, I can ensure that no matter which controller action throws an exception, I can handle it and return an appropriately formatted ActionResult containing the necessary info. Is there a way to do this kind of thing with WCF?

Answer 1

Check out the WCF IErrorHandler interface - it allows you to centrally define one way in your service implementation to catch all exceptions and either swallow them, or convert them to WCF-friendly SOAP exceptions. This will make sure the channel between the client and the server isn't faulted, e.g. it can still be used after this call failed.
I don't understand why you'd want to "catch" the SOAP faults and convert those to something else, though.... nor do I know of any support that WCF would give you. The basic assumption is: catch .NET exceptions and convert them into interoperable SOAP faults