Programming WCF Services

Metadata Exchange

A service has two options for publishing its metadata. You can provide the metadata over the HTTP-GET protocol, or you can use a dedicated endpoint, discussed later. WCF can provide the metadata over HTTP-GET automatically for your service; all you need is to enable it by adding an explicit service behavior. Behaviors are described in subsequent chapters. For now, all you need to know is that a behavior is a local aspect of the service, such as whether or not it wants to exchange its metadata over HTTP-GET. You can add this behavior administratively or programmatically. Example 1-10 shows a host application config file, where both hosted services reference a custom behavior section that enables the metadata exchange over HTTP-GET. The address the clients need to use for the HTTP-GET is the registered HTTP base address of the service. You can also specify in the behavior an external URL for this purpose.

Example 1-10. Enabling metadata exchange behavior using a config file

<system.serviceModel>
   <services>
      <service name = "MyService"behaviorConfiguration = "MEXGET">
         <host>
            <baseAddresses>
               <add baseAddress = "http://localhost:8000/"/>
            </baseAddresses>
         </host>
         ...
      </service>
      <service name = "MyOtherService" behaviorConfiguration = "MEXGET">
         <host>
            <baseAddresses>
               <add baseAddress = "http://localhost:8001/"/>
            </baseAddresses>
         </host>
         ...
      </service>
   </services>
   <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
         <behavior name = "MEXGET">
            <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled = "true"/> </behavior> ...