Return Stream from WCF service, using SqlFileStream

Question

I have a WCF service, from which users can request large datafiles (stored in an SQL database with FileStream enabled). These files should be streamed, and not loaded into memory before sending them off.

So I have the following method that should return a stream, which is called by the WCF service, so that it can return the Stream to the client.

public static Stream GetData(string tableName, string columnName, string primaryKeyName, Guid primaryKey)
    {
        string sqlQuery =
            String.Format(
                "SELECT {0}.PathName(), GET_FILESTREAM_TRANSACTION_CONTEXT() FROM {1} WHERE {2} = @primaryKey", columnName, tableName, primaryKeyName);

        SqlFileStream stream;

        using (TransactionScope transactionScope = new TransactionScope())
        {
            byte[] serverTransactionContext;
            string serverPath;
            using (SqlConnection sqlConnection = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["ConnString"].ToString()))
            {
                sqlConnection.Open();

                using (SqlCommand sqlCommand = new SqlCommand(sqlQuery, sqlConnection))
                {
                    sqlCommand.Parameters.Add("@primaryKey", SqlDbType.UniqueIdentifier).Value = primaryKey;

                    using (SqlDataReader sqlDataReader = sqlCommand.ExecuteReader())
                    {
                        sqlDataReader.Read();
                        serverPath = sqlDataReader.GetSqlString(0).Value;
                        serverTransactionContext = sqlDataReader.GetSqlBinary(1).Value;
                        sqlDataReader.Close();
                    }
                }
            }

            stream = new SqlFileStream(serverPath, serverTransactionContext, FileAccess.Read);
            transactionScope.Complete();
        }

        return stream;
    }

My problem is with the TransactionScope and the SqlConnection. The way I'm doing it right now doesn't work, I get a TransactionAbortedException saying "The transaction has aborted". Can I close the transaction and the connection before returning the Stream? Any help is appreciated, thank you

Edit:

I've created a wrapper for a SqlFileStream, that implements IDisposable so that I can close everything up once the stream is disposed. Seems to be working fine

public class WcfStream : Stream
{
    private readonly SqlConnection sqlConnection;
    private readonly SqlDataReader sqlDataReader;
    private readonly SqlTransaction sqlTransaction;
    private readonly SqlFileStream sqlFileStream;

    public WcfStream(string connectionString, string columnName, string tableName, string primaryKeyName, Guid primaryKey)
    {
        string sqlQuery =
            String.Format(
                "SELECT {0}.PathName(), GET_FILESTREAM_TRANSACTION_CONTEXT() FROM {1} WHERE {2} = @primaryKey",
                columnName, tableName, primaryKeyName);

        sqlConnection = new SqlConnection(connectionString);
        sqlConnection.Open();

        sqlTransaction = sqlConnection.BeginTransaction();

        using (SqlCommand sqlCommand = new SqlCommand(sqlQuery, sqlConnection, sqlTransaction))
        {
            sqlCommand.Parameters.Add("@primaryKey", SqlDbType.UniqueIdentifier).Value = primaryKey;
            sqlDataReader = sqlCommand.ExecuteReader();
        }

        sqlDataReader.Read();

        string serverPath = sqlDataReader.GetSqlString(0).Value;
        byte[] serverTransactionContext = sqlDataReader.GetSqlBinary(1).Value;

        sqlFileStream = new SqlFileStream(serverPath, serverTransactionContext, FileAccess.Read);
    }

    protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
    {
        sqlDataReader.Close();
        sqlFileStream.Close();
        sqlConnection.Close();
    }

    public override void Flush()
    {
        sqlFileStream.Flush();
    }

    public override long Seek(long offset, SeekOrigin origin)
    {
        return sqlFileStream.Seek(offset, origin);
    }

    public override void SetLength(long value)
    {
        sqlFileStream.SetLength(value);
    }

    public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
    {
        return sqlFileStream.Read(buffer, offset, count);
    }

    public override void Write(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
    {
        sqlFileStream.Write(buffer, offset, count);
    }

    public override bool CanRead
    {
        get { return sqlFileStream.CanRead; }
    }

    public override bool CanSeek
    {
        get { return sqlFileStream.CanSeek; }
    }

    public override bool CanWrite
    {
        get { return sqlFileStream.CanWrite; }
    }

    public override long Length
    {
        get { return sqlFileStream.Length; }
    }

    public override long Position
    {
        get { return sqlFileStream.Position; }
        set { sqlFileStream.Position = value; }
    }
}

Answer 1

Normally I might suggest wrapping the stream in a custom stream that closes the transaction when disposed, however IIRC WCF makes no guarantees about which threads do what, but TransactionScope is thread-specific. As such, perhaps the better option is to copy the data into a MemoryStream (if it isn't too big) and return that. The Stream.Copy method in 4.0 should make that a breeze, but remember to rewind the memory-stream before the final return (.Position = 0).

Obviously this will be a big problem if the stream is big, ... but, if the stream is big enough for that to be a concern, then personally I'd be concerned at the fact that it is running in TransactionScope at all, since that has inbuilt time limits, and causes serializable isolation (by default).

A final suggestion would be to use a SqlTransaction, which is then not thread-dependent; you could write a Stream wrapper that sits around the SqlFileStream, and close the reader, transaction and connection (and the wrapped stream) in the Dispose(). WCF will call that (via Close()) after processing the results.

Answer 2

Hmm I might be missing something here, but it seems to me a simpler approach would be to provide the stream to the WCF method and writing to it from there, rather than trying to return a stream which the client reads from?

Here's an example for a WCF method:

public void WriteFileToStream(FetchFileArgs args, Stream outputStream)
{
    using (SqlConnection conn = CreateOpenConnection())
    using (SqlTransaction tran = conn.BeginTransaction(IsolationLevel.ReadCommitted))
    using (SqlCommand cmd = conn.CreateCommand())
    {
        cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
        cmd.CommandText = "usp_file";
        cmd.Transaction = tran;
        cmd.Parameters.Add("@FileId", SqlDbType.NVarChar).Value = args.Id;

        using (SqlDataReader reader = cmd.ExecuteReader())
        {
            if (reader.Read())
            {
                string path = reader.GetString(3);
                byte[] streamContext = reader.GetSqlBytes(4).Buffer;

                using (var sqlStream = new SqlFileStream(path, streamContext, FileAccess.Read))
                    sqlStream.CopyTo(outputStream);
            }
        }

        tran.Commit();
    }
}

In my app, the consumer happens to be an ASP.NET application, and the calling code looks like this:

_fileStorageProvider.WriteFileToStream(fileId, Response.OutputStream);