Service Channel-Level Programming
This topic describes how to write a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service application without using the System.ServiceModel.ServiceHost and its associated object model.
Receiving Messages
To be ready to receive and process messages, the following steps are required:
Create a binding.
Build a channel listener.
Open the channel listener.
Read the request and send a reply.
Close all channel objects.
Creating a Binding
The first step in listening for and receiving messages is creating a binding. WCF ships with several built-in or system-provided bindings that can be used directly by instantiating one of them. In addition, you can also create your own custom binding by instantiating a CustomBinding class which is what the code in listing 1 does.
The code example below creates an instance of System.ServiceModel.Channels.CustomBinding and adds an System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpTransportBindingElement to its Elements collection which is a collection of binding elements that are used to build the channel stack. In this example, because the elements collection has only the HttpTransportBindingElement, the resulting channel stack has only the HTTP transport channel.
Building a ChannelListener
After creating a binding, we call Binding.BuildChannelListener to build the channel listener where the type parameter is the channel shape to create. In this example we are using System.ServiceModel.Channels.IReplyChannel because we want to listen for incoming messages in a request/reply message exchange pattern.
IReplyChannel is used for receiving request messages and sending back reply messages. Calling IReplyChannel.ReceiveRequest returns an System.ServiceModel.Channels.IRequestChannel, which can be used to receive the request message and to send back a reply message.
When creating the listener, we pass the network address on which it listens, in this case http://localhost:8080/channelapp. In general, each transport channel supports one or possibly several address schemes, for example, the HTTP transport supports both http and https schemes.
We also pass an empty System.ServiceModel.Channels.BindingParameterCollection when creating the listener. A binding parameter is a mechanism to pass parameters that control how the listener should be built. In our example, we are not using any such parameters so we pass an empty collection.
Listening for Incoming Messages
We then call ICommunicationObject.Open on the listener and start accepting channels. The behavior of IChannelListener<TChannel>.AcceptChannel depends on whether the transport is connection-oriented or connection-less. For connection-oriented transports, AcceptChannel blocks until a new connection request comes in at which point it returns a new channel that represents that new connection. For connection-less transports, such as HTTP, AcceptChannel returns immediately with the one and only channel that the transport listener creates.
In this example, the listener returns a channel that implements IReplyChannel. To receive messages on this channel we first call ICommunicationObject.Open on it to place it in a state ready for communication. We then call ReceiveRequest which blocks until a message arrives.
Reading the Request and Sending a Reply
When ReceiveRequest returns a RequestContext, we get the received message using its RequestMessage property. We write out the message’s action and body content, (which we assume is a string).
To send a reply, we create a new reply message in this case passing back the string data we received in the request. We then call Reply to send the reply message.
Closing Objects
To avoid leaking resources, it is very important to close objects used in communications when they are no longer required. In this example we close the request message, the request context, the channel and the listener.
The following code example shows a basic service in which a channel listener receives only one message. A real service keeps accepting channels and receiving messages until the service exits.
using System;
using System.ServiceModel.Channels;
namespace ProgrammingChannels
{
class Service
{
static void RunService()
{
//Step1: Create a custom binding with just TCP.
BindingElement[] bindingElements = new BindingElement[2];
bindingElements[0] = new TextMessageEncodingBindingElement();
bindingElements[1] = new HttpTransportBindingElement();
CustomBinding binding = new CustomBinding(bindingElements);
//Step2: Use the binding to build the channel listener.
IChannelListener<IReplyChannel> listener =
binding.BuildChannelListener<IReplyChannel>(
new Uri("http://localhost:8080/channelapp"),
new BindingParameterCollection());
//Step3: Listening for messages.
listener.Open();
Console.WriteLine(
"Listening for incoming channel connections");
//Wait for and accept incoming connections.
IReplyChannel channel = listener.AcceptChannel();
Console.WriteLine("Channel accepted. Listening for messages");
//Open the accepted channel.
channel.Open();
//Wait for and receive a message from the channel.
RequestContext request= channel.ReceiveRequest();
//Step4: Reading the request message.
Message message = request.RequestMessage;
Console.WriteLine("Message received");
Console.WriteLine("Message action: {0}",
message.Headers.Action);
string data=message.GetBody<string>();
Console.WriteLine("Message content: {0}",data);
//Send a reply.
Message replymessage=Message.CreateMessage(
binding.MessageVersion,
"http://contoso.com/someotheraction",
data);
request.Reply(replymessage);
//Step5: Closing objects.
//Do not forget to close the message.
message.Close();
//Do not forget to close RequestContext.
request.Close();
//Do not forget to close channels.
channel.Close();
//Do not forget to close listeners.
listener.Close();
}
public static void Main()
{
Service.RunService();
Console.WriteLine("Press enter to exit");
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
Imports System.ServiceModel.Channels
Namespace ProgrammingChannels
Friend Class Service
Private Shared Sub RunService()
'Step1: Create a custom binding with just TCP.
Dim bindingElements(1) As BindingElement = {New TextMessageEncodingBindingElement(), _
New HttpTransportBindingElement()}
Dim binding As New CustomBinding(bindingElements)
'Step2: Use the binding to build the channel listener.
Dim listener = binding.BuildChannelListener(Of IReplyChannel)(New Uri("http://localhost:8080/channelapp"), _
New BindingParameterCollection())
'Step3: Listening for messages.
listener.Open()
Console.WriteLine("Listening for incoming channel connections")
'Wait for and accept incoming connections.
Dim channel = listener.AcceptChannel()
Console.WriteLine("Channel accepted. Listening for messages")
'Open the accepted channel.
channel.Open()
'Wait for and receive a message from the channel.
Dim request = channel.ReceiveRequest()
'Step4: Reading the request message.
Dim message = request.RequestMessage
Console.WriteLine("Message received")
Console.WriteLine("Message action: {0}", message.Headers.Action)
Dim data = message.GetBody(Of String)()
Console.WriteLine("Message content: {0}", data)
'Send a reply.
Dim replymessage = Message.CreateMessage(binding.MessageVersion, _
"http://contoso.com/someotheraction", data)
request.Reply(replymessage)
'Step5: Closing objects.
'Do not forget to close the message.
message.Close()
'Do not forget to close RequestContext.
request.Close()
'Do not forget to close channels.
channel.Close()
'Do not forget to close listeners.
listener.Close()
End Sub
Public Shared Sub Main()
Service.RunService()
Console.WriteLine("Press enter to exit")
Console.ReadLine()
End Sub
End Class
End Namespace