I'm getting an error when trying to use the WCF Test Client with my WCF service. Here is the service code:
[ServiceContract]
public interface IEmployeeService
{
[OperationContract(Name = "GetEmployee")]
[WebGet(RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml,
UriTemplate = "/Employees/{employeeNumber}")]
Employee GetEmployee(string employeeNumber);
}
public Employee GetEmployee(string employeeNumber)
{
var employeeNumberValue = Convert.ToInt32(employeeNumber);
var employee = DataProvider.GetEmployee(employeeNumberValue);
return employee;
}
<system.serviceModel>
<services>
<service name="Employees.Services.EmployeeService"
behaviorConfiguration="metaBehavior">
<endpoint address=""
behaviorConfiguration="webHttp"
binding="webHttpBinding"
contract="Employees.Services.IEmployeeService">
</endpoint>
<endpoint address="mex"
binding="mexHttpBinding"
contract="IMetadataExchange">
</endpoint>
</service>
</services>
<behaviors>
<endpointBehaviors>
<behavior name="webHttp">
<webHttp/>
</behavior>
</endpointBehaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="metaBehavior">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>
I am able to connect to the service using the WCF Test Client, but when I try to invoke GetEmployee(employeeNumber) I get the following error:
Failed to invoke the service. Possible causes: The service is offline or inaccessible; the client-side configuration does not match the proxy; the existing proxy is invalid. Refer to the stack trace for more detail. You can try to recover by starting a new proxy, restoring to default configuration, or refreshing the service.
I was able to successfully call this service by sending a request from the browser.
Any idea why I can't use the WCF Test Client?
Please ignore my earlier answer. I don't think the problem is at the client-side config.
See WCF Test Client and WebHttpBinding.
This is a limitation of the web programming model itself. Unlike SOAP endpoints (i.e., those with BasicHttpBinding, WSHttpBinding, etc) which have a way to expose metadata about itself (WSDL or Mex) with information about all the operations / parameters in the endpoint, there's currently no standard way to expose metadata for a non-SOAP endpoint - and that's exactly what the webHttpBinding-based endpoints are. In short, the WCF Test Client won't be useful for web-based endpoints. If some standard for representing web-style endpoints emerges when WCF ships its next version, we'll likely update the test client to support it, but for now there's none widely adopted.