WCF Configuration without a config file

Question

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 1

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" ) ); } 

Answer 2

If you are interested in eliminating the usage of the System.ServiceModel section in the web.config for IIS hosting, I have posted an example of how to do that here (http://bejabbers2.blogspot.com/2010/02/wcf-zero-config-in-net-35-part-ii.html). I show how to customize a ServiceHost to create both metadata and wshttpbinding endpoints. I do it in a general purpose way that doesn't require additional coding. For those who aren't immediately upgrading to .NET 4.0 this can be pretty convenient.