Basic Sample

This sample shows how to make a service discoverable and how to search for and call a discoverable service. This sample is composed of two projects: service and client.

Note

This sample implements discovery in code. For a sample that implements discovery in configuration, see Configuration Sample.

Service

This is a simple calculator service implementation. The discovery related code can be found in Main where a ServiceDiscoveryBehavior is added to the service host and a UdpDiscoveryEndpoint is added as shown in the following code.

using (ServiceHost serviceHost = new ServiceHost(typeof(CalculatorService), baseAddress))
{
    serviceHost.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(ICalculatorService), new 
      WSHttpBinding(), String.Empty);

    // Make the service discoverable over UDP multicast
    serviceHost.Description.Behaviors.Add(new ServiceDiscoveryBehavior());                
    serviceHost.AddServiceEndpoint(new UdpDiscoveryEndpoint());

    serviceHost.Open();
    // ...
}

Client

The client uses a DynamicEndpoint to locate the service. The DynamicEndpoint, a standard endpoint, resolves the endpoint of the service when the client is opened. In this case, the DynamicEndpoint looks for the service based on the service contract. The DynamicEndpoint conducts the search over a UdpDiscoveryEndpoint by default. Once it locates a service endpoint, the client connects to that service over the specified binding.

public static void Main()
{
   DynamicEndpoint dynamicEndpoint = new DynamicEndpoint( ContractDescription.GetContract(typeof(ICalculatorService)), new WSHttpBinding());
   // ...
}            

The client defines a method called InvokeCalculatorService that uses the DiscoveryClient class to search for services. The DynamicEndpoint inherits from ServiceEndpoint, so it can be passed to the InvokeCalculatorService method. The example then uses the DynamicEndpoint to create an instance of CalculatorServiceClient and calls the various operations of the calculator service.

static void InvokeCalculatorService(ServiceEndpoint serviceEndpoint)
{
   // Create a client
   CalculatorServiceClient client = new CalculatorServiceClient(serviceEndpoint);

   Console.WriteLine("Invoking CalculatorService");
   Console.WriteLine();

   double value1 = 100.00D;
   double value2 = 15.99D;

   // Call the Add service operation.
   double result = client.Add(value1, value2);
   Console.WriteLine("Add({0},{1}) = {2}", value1, value2, result);

   // Call the Subtract service operation.
   result = client.Subtract(value1, value2);
   Console.WriteLine("Subtract({0},{1}) = {2}", value1, value2, result);

   // Call the Multiply service operation.
   result = client.Multiply(value1, value2);
   Console.WriteLine("Multiply({0},{1}) = {2}", value1, value2, result);

   // Call the Divide service operation.
   result = client.Divide(value1, value2);
   Console.WriteLine("Divide({0},{1}) = {2}", value1, value2, result);
   Console.WriteLine();

   //Closing the client gracefully closes the connection and cleans up resources
   client.Close();
}

To use this sample

1. This sample uses HTTP endpoints and to run this sample, proper URL ACLs must be added. For more information, seeConfiguring HTTP and HTTPS. Executing the following command at an elevated privilege should add the appropriate ACLs. You may want to substitute your Domain and Username for the following arguments if the command does not work as is. netsh http add urlacl url=http://+:8000/ user=%DOMAIN%\%UserName%

2. Using Visual Studio 2010, open the Basic.sln and build the sample.

3. Run the service.exe application.

4. After the service has started, run the client.exe.

5. Observe that the client was able to find the service without knowing its address.

Note:

The samples may already be installed on your machine. Check for the following (default) directory before continuing. <InstallDrive>:\WF_WCF_Samples If this directory does not exist, go to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) Samples for .NET Framework 4 to download all Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and WF samples. This sample is located in the following directory. <InstallDrive>:\WF_WCF_Samples\WCF\Basic\Discovery\Basic