WCF Rest Services for Windows Phone

So great, to create WCF Rest services for Windows Phone, you have to follow just 5 steps. This post will have more code than words, making it neat and to-the-point

Step 1: Create a WCF Service

Define the interface IMyService in ‘Services’ folder of YourWebsite

namespace YourWebsite.Services
{
[ServiceContract(Namespace = "http://YourWebsite.com/services", Name = "MyService")]
public interface IMyService
{
[OperationContract(Name="DoWork")]
[WebGet(UriTemplate = "?nm={name}",
RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml,
ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml,
BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare)]
[FaultContract(typeof(ServiceError))]
bool DoWork(string name);
}
}

Add a service MyService.svc that inherits from IMyService

[AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)]
public class MyService : IMyService
{
public bool DoWork(string name)
{
return true;
}
}

Step 2: Modify the markup of MyService.svc

The markup of the MyService.svc should have Factory=”System.ServiceModel.Activation.WebServiceHostFactory”

<%@ ServiceHost Language="C#" Debug="true" Service="YourWebsite.Services.MyService"
Factory="System.ServiceModel.Activation.WebServiceHostFactory"
CodeBehind="MyService.svc.cs" %>

Step 3: Modify Web.Config of the Hosting Website

Add REST behavior (webHttp) to web.config

<system.serviceModel>
<serviceHostingEnvironment>
<baseAddressPrefixFilters>
<add prefix="http://www.YourWebsite.com/Services"/>
</baseAddressPrefixFilters>
</serviceHostingEnvironment>
<behaviors>
<endpointBehaviors>
<behavior name="restBehavior">
<webHttp />
</behavior>
</endpointBehaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" />
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
<client>
<endpoint address="MyService.svc" binding="webHttpBinding" contract="YourWebsite.Services.IMyService" behaviorConfiguration="restBehavior" />
</client>
</system.serviceModel>

Step 4: Calling MyService in Windows Phone We don’t need to create any proxy class, and a simple WebClient can do the proxy stuff for us!

string url = string.Format("http://yourwebsite.com/services/MyService.svc?nm={0}", "My Name");
WebClient proxy = new WebClient();
proxy.OpenReadCompleted += new OpenReadCompletedEventHandler(proxy_OpenReadCompleted);
proxy.OpenReadAsync(new Uri(url, UriKind.Absolute));

Once the WCF service is invoked, proxy_OpenReadCompleted is called.

private void proxy_OpenReadCompleted(object sender, OpenReadCompletedEventArgs e)
{
if (e.Error != null)
{
// do something
}
DataContractSerializer serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(bool));
bool returnValue = (bool)serializer.ReadObject(e.Result);
}

Step 5: Execute And you are done! Just execute your Windows Phone application and you will have the RESTed output :)

Reference: WCF Rest Services for Windows Phone from our NCG partner Punit Ganshani at the Punit Ganshani blog.