WCF Configuration without a config file

Kilhoffer picture Kilhoffer · Sep 10, 2008 · Viewed 74.6k times · Source

Does anyone know of a good example of how to expose a WCF service programatically without the use of a configuration file? I know the service object model is much richer now with WCF, so I know it's possible. I just have not seen an example of how to do so. Conversely, I would like to see how consuming without a configuration file is done as well.

Before anyone asks, I have a very specific need to do this without configuration files. I would normally not recommend such a practice, but as I said, there is a very specific need in this case.

Answer

devios1 picture devios1 · Nov 15, 2008

Consuming a web service without a config file is very simple, as I've discovered. You simply need to create a binding object and address object and pass them either to the constructor of the client proxy or to a generic ChannelFactory instance. You can look at the default app.config to see what settings to use, then create a static helper method somewhere that instantiates your proxy:

internal static MyServiceSoapClient CreateWebServiceInstance() {
    BasicHttpBinding binding = new BasicHttpBinding();
    // I think most (or all) of these are defaults--I just copied them from app.config:
    binding.SendTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes( 1 );
    binding.OpenTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes( 1 );
    binding.CloseTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes( 1 );
    binding.ReceiveTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes( 10 );
    binding.AllowCookies = false;
    binding.BypassProxyOnLocal = false;
    binding.HostNameComparisonMode = HostNameComparisonMode.StrongWildcard;
    binding.MessageEncoding = WSMessageEncoding.Text;
    binding.TextEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;
    binding.TransferMode = TransferMode.Buffered;
    binding.UseDefaultWebProxy = true;
    return new MyServiceSoapClient( binding, new EndpointAddress( "http://www.mysite.com/MyService.asmx" ) );
}