WCF Large interface at a single endpoint address

Question

I have a wcf service that exposes quite a large number of service methods on a single endpoint address. Up to now, all service methods are implemented in a single service contract class. This service contract class implements several service contract interfaces. Now I would like to split the implementation of of the service contract methods into several classes in order to avoid the contract class from growing to big. I use a self hosting scenario with a ServiceHost. The ServiceHost just takes the type of one single type implementing the service methods, so it seems that everything has to be implemented in this class. Of course the flesh of the methods can be factored out into several classes. But is there also a way to split the methods into several classes?

Answer 1

You can implement the service as a partial class, which lets you split the implementation to multiple files.

If the requirement is to keep a single endpoint and a single interface, then there is no other way of splitting it up - the one class you create must implement all of the interface.

I would suggest to keep the service implementation as simple as possible, and just have each method be a one-liner that delegates the operation to the actual implementation, which can then be split over multiple classes. Perhaps it would even make sense to make one per operation ? That is a pattern I have used before with success.