Here in this tutorial, you are going to follow a simple step by step approach to create a WCF Data Service. You need Visual Studio 2010 IDE & SQL Server in your machine as prerequisites for building WCF Data Service. It would be nice if you have the basic .NET knowledge. Let's get started!

Step 1

Open Visual studio 2010 and create a Web -> ASP.NET Web Application with a language of your choice, either C# or VB. I’ve used C# throughout the lesson. The reason why we are creating an ASP.NET Web application is because in order to host and consume the WCF Data Service we need a hosting and client application.

Step 2

Once the application is created, you need a DataModel where it is going to be served. So let’s create a SQL Server database. Right click on the App_Data -> Create SQL Server database and define the schema as below and let’s feed some values into our newly created database table.

Step 3

You have your Database and Table ready, now it’s time for you to create an Entity Data Model. Right click on the project and Add New item -> Select ADO.NET Entity Data Model, a Wizard pops up, proceed further with it. Below screenshots helps you building a Model.

Step 4

Now, you are done with Entity Model and for our Schema structure, this how the Model looks:

Step 5

You are good with our basic implementation in-order to adopt a WCF Data Service into our application. Ready to go. Let’s create a WCF Data Service. Right click on the Project -> Add New Item -> Select WCF Data Service.

Step 6

WCF creates us a basic template code for us to start with.

Step 7

Before moving forward, let us keep our Database Entity name handy. It can be found in Web.Config under Connection String.

Step 8

Here you have replaced the template code with EntityName and Set of rules which decides the rights of access.

Step 9

If you run the application or just hit F5 selecting the WCF Data Service file. It opens up a browser and navigates us to http://localhost:/WCFDataFilename.svc . You can see a XML document with title holds to the Entity Name we created.

Step 10

To get the full database values as a XML model, just postfix the Entity Name with URL. As below:

Step 11

Quite simple right! You do have some syntax approach in accessing the resource via OData. For example, if you need a Single record, access it like below:

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In this tutorial, I will explain to Self Host your WCF Service in a Console Application step by step. In order to host a WCF Service, you  need a managed process, a ServiceHost instance and an endpoint configured forWCF Service. You can host aWCF Service in following different possible ways:

1. Hosting in a Managed Application/ Self Hosting

• Console Application
• Windows/WPF Application
• Windows Service

2.  Hosting on Web Server

• IIS 6.0 (ASP.NET Application supports only HTTP)
• Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) i.e. IIS 7.0 supports HTTP, TCP, NamedPipes, MSMQ

Self Hosting a WCF Service in a console application is comparatively easy as well as flexible because we can achieve the purpose by writing few lines of code.

Step 1

Let’s first Create a Simple WCF Service i.e. a StudentService and then host in a Console application. StudentService having service operation GetStudentInfo that takes StudentId as parameter and returns student name. Open Visual Studio and Create a new Class Library Project, name it as “StudentService” and press “OK” button.

Then, right click on project and Add a new “WCF Service” to this Class Library Project.

It will add Service Contract (IStudentService) and it’s implementation class (StudentService) to class library project. Also, it will add a reference to System.ServiceModel.
Code for IStudentService interface will be as follows:

 [ServiceContract] public interface IStudentService
 {
     [OperationContract]
     string GetStudentInfo(int studentId);
 }
And following is the code for StudentService implementation class:
      public class StudentService : IStudentService
     {
         public string GetStudentInfo(int studentId)
         {
             string studentName = string.Empty;
             switch (studentId)
             {
                 case 1:
                     {
                         studentName = “Your Name”;
                         break;
                     }
                 case 2:
                     {
                         studentName = “Your Name”;
                         break;
                     }
                 default:
                     {
                         studentName = “No student found”;
                         break;
                     }
             }
             return studentName;
         }
     }

Step 2

In order to host this service in Console application, let’s add a new console application project “StudentHost” to this solution.

Your console application will have reference to:

•     StudentService class library
•     System.ServiceModel.

At the start of this WCF Tutorial, we discuss that hosting a WCF service requires a Managed Process (i.e. console application), Service Host (an instance of ServiceHost class) and one or more Service Endpoints. Detailed implementation of Student host application is as follows:

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ServiceHost studentServiceHost = null;
            try
            {
                //Base Address for StudentService
                Uri httpBaseAddress = new Uri(“http://localhost:4321/StudentService”);
               
                //Instantiate ServiceHost
                studentServiceHost = new ServiceHost(typeof(StudentService.StudentService),
httpBaseAddress);
 
               //Add Endpoint to Host
                studentServiceHost.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(StudentService.IStudentService),
                                                        new WSHttpBinding(), “”);           
 
               //Metadata Exchange
                ServiceMetadataBehavior serviceBehavior = new ServiceMetadataBehavior();
                serviceBehavior.HttpGetEnabled = true;
                studentServiceHost.Description.Behaviors.Add(serviceBehavior);
 
                //Open
                studentServiceHost.Open();
                Console.WriteLine(“Service is live now at : {0}”, httpBaseAddress);
                Console.ReadKey();               
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                studentServiceHost = null;
                Console.WriteLine(“There is an issue with StudentService” + ex.Message);
            }
        }
    }

Now, simply build the console application and run it after setting as startup project. You will see the following screen that shows our self-hosted WCF Service is running.

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