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 :)