I have used WCF in the past with my Webforms so my solution was
MyWebformApp = WCF(Model+business) + Web Forms
So when I want to work with the MVC for presentation arch. How do u use WCF with ASP.net MVC ?
Are your data contracts a part of the model ? How do you register the datacontracts as properties?
Roughly here are a few steps:
Create a proxy of the service using svcutil.exe and include it in your application
Create an interface which will abstract all the necessary methods you need to call from the application (IRepository)
Implement this repository and call your WCF service (work with the generated client)
Inject the repository into the controller constructor
In the meantime think about the view models you would set and the mapping between the objects coming from the web service and those view models.
Related
I am working in an MVC web application. This application also use WCF service and Entity-framework.
In solution explorer I have two projects 1. MVC 2. WCF Service.
I am little bit confuse how should I use entities in MVC and WCF service.
For instance I have created Employee.cs class in Model folder in MVC.
And in controller I call a method of Get Employee() of WCF service which returns employee class type.
In WCF service how I will return as employee type because I added that class in Model folder of MVC project which is not accessible to MY WCF service project.
So in this case how I should use that entity in such way that it can be accessible to MVC as well to my WCF service.
Please let me know you need more clarification..
To share the same classes between the projects,create another class library and and the shared code in there.
Then reference the class library from both projects.
After getting an advice about using ServiceStack for my asp.net MVC website
(Maintaining state in Asp.Net MVC website), I started implementing it in my project - but some stuff is still unclear for me.
Currently I have two projects: one is the asp.net MVC project and the other is the BL project (a class library that holds all the business logic).
All controllers in the MVC project make calls to classes/functions in the BL project.
For now, the mvc project loads the BL's DLL, but in the future when the website will grow, the BL's project will run on separate machines.
I would like to use ServiceStack for session management/caching and authentication (which both of them usually depended on each other).
My questions:
1) Is it possible to use only these two features without the functionality of message based web service? ServiceStack need to be initialized, and it throws me an error when initialized twice (in both projects).
2) Is it possible to split the implementation of ServiceStack between the two projects? I would like to maintain the process of authentication in the BL project using the ServiceStack's authentication providers, but handle all the UI/cookies by myself (or with the help of ServiceStack) in the mvc project.
3) I would like to use ServiceStack's caching in the BL project, but I guess that I still need to maintain some session cookies to receive the session id. What is the right way to do it? Are there any built-in helper functions for this purpose?
Thanks in advance!
1) Is it possible to use only these two features without the functionality of message based web service? ServiceStack need to be initialized, and it throws me an error when initialized twice (in both projects).
If you install the latest ServiceStack.Mvc NuGet package you will get the base ServiceStackController which is an MVC Controller providing convenient access to ServiceStack's built-in providers. Although you still need to auto-wire your controllers with the dependencies it needs, e.g. an injected ICacheClient.
Although even if you're not using ServiceStack's WebFramework, having an AppHost is a convenient place to register your dependencies. ServiceStack is triggered by ASP.NET's IHttpHandler mappings specified in the Web.config, so if you don't have any mappings specified ServiceStack is never able to be called externally, but the registered dependencies are still able to be accessed internally with:
var cache = AppHost.Resolve<ICacheClient>(); //Get ICacheClient for SS IOC
2) Is it possible to split the implementation of ServiceStack between the two projects?
If you do have an AppHost, you cannot have more than one instance in a host project (by design) since an AppHost should be analogous to a host project where all your service dependencies should be registered and settings configured that apply to your entire web application or service.
You can however split the implementation of your services across multiple assemblies and have ServiceStack scan them all by specifying them in your AppHostBase constructor, e.g:
public class AppHost : AppHostBase
{
public AppHost() : base("My Service",
typeof(AServiceInDll1).Assembly, typeof(AServiceInDll2).Assembly/*, etc.*/){}
}
2) cont. I would like to maintain the process of authentication in the BL project using the ServiceStack's authentication providers, but handle all the UI/cookies by myself (or with the help of ServiceStack) in the mvc project.
Look at the ServiceStack.UseCases CustomAuthenticationMvc example project for an example of using MVC but authenticating with ServiceStack.
3) I would like to use ServiceStack's caching in the BL project, but I guess that I still need to maintain some session cookies to receive the session id. What is the right way to do it? Are there any built-in helper functions for this purpose?
You can use any of ServiceStack's Caching providers just like any other C# class, i.e. have your Business Logic binded to ICacheClient and inject the concrete implementation in your IOC.
For sessions you can use the base.SessionAs<T> method in the ServiceStack.Mvc ServiceStackController to access the session. To Save back the session you can use the IHttpRequest.SaveSession() extension methods. Although both these methods require the ASP.NET context (it uses ASP.NET's HttpContext singleton if not provided) to work since it relies on ServiceStack's ss-id/ss-pid cookies that are automatically instructed to be added on the client (by the server) whenever you access the Session.
If you don't want your business logic services to have a dependency on ASP.NET's System.Web I recommend accessing and saving the session to be done in your controllers and passed to your business logic.
I recommend reading the Sessions Wiki Page for more background info on how ServiceStack's sessions work.
Integration of ASP.NET Context between ServiceStack and ASP.NET or MVC
I'll add this info since it's useful for anyone doing advanced integration between ServiceStack and ASP.NET or MVC as some of ServiceStack's extension methods rely on these built-in types.
You can create a ServiceStack IHttpRequest or IHttpResponse (within any HTTP/Controller request) with:
var ssHttpRequest = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Request.ToRequest();
var ssHttpResponse = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.ToResponse();
Finally you can create a complete request context (that encapsulates both a IHttpRequest and IHttpResponse) with:
var ssRequestContext = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.ToRequestContext();
Not sure I fully grasp your questions and how you would like to split the projects across multiple servers. I'll try my best to answer your questions...
Is it possible to use only these two features without the functionality of message based web service? ServiceStack need to be initialized, and it throws me an error when initialized twice
It seems like you're trying to run 2 instances of ServiceStack (maybe even 2 websites) within one solution (one in your web project and once in your BL layer). I don't think that's possible. Your BL layer can share ServiceStack libraries and you can configure (within AppHost.Configure method) those in your web project that references your BL project.
Is it possible to split the implementation of ServiceStack between the two projects?
I think the answer is yes, but you would have have one instance of ServiceStack used by both the projects. This would share the Session state across the projects. There might be a way to have two projects with there own instances of ServiceStack...see https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack/wiki/Self-hosting.
I would like to use ServiceStack's caching in the BL project, but I guess that I still need to maintain some session cookies to receive the session id.
If ServiceStack is being used across both projects you can access all session data in UserSession (https://github.com/ServiceStack/ServiceStack/wiki/Sessions). If you MVC Controllers inherit from ServiceStackController you can use SessionFeature.GetSessionId() to get the session Id. In your ServiceStack Service (classes that implement Service) you can get the session data from using base.Session.
Hope this helps.
Is it possible to host in the same appDomain two different projects of WCF service and MVC application?
For example, I need to use some pulic static class from MVC application by my WCF service. But they are in different projects, so this class for them is in different appDomains.
It is quite common to host WCF services within an ASP.NET application (MVC or WebForms). From a coding perspective, the only thing you may need to configure is ASP.NET compatibility mode, if the code WCF is calling requires access to the current HTTP context.
Create your WCF service contracts, and implementations of those contracts, configure your services, bindings, and behaviors in the web.config, as you normally would. Here is another example, which you could create in virtually any ASP.NET application.
A Guide to Designing and Building RESTful Web Services with WCF 3.5, this article explains the foundations of REST and how it relates to WCF. MVC uses REST as the architectural model. I am guessing one can use the .NET MVC to create web applications that have both a front end and an API point, but I am not sure if the safe way of building the API is to build it with WCF and then use it in the MVC as a controller.
Please comment if the question is not clear, I will add or modify the text.
Theres actually a third option, ADO.NET Data Servies. Anyway, here how I see them.
MVC REST: Gives you full control over how to expose your data, you have to write all the code to get it up an running tho, e.g. serialization, deserialization, all the CRUD methods etc etc. Worht metioning that this being an MVC site means you are limited to exposing your service via IIS over HTTP(S)
WCF REST: More automation than MVC, a much more solid frameowkr than MVC REST, i.e. caching, security, error handling etc (basically all the stff you'd have to write yourself using plain MVC). Being WCF, you can host this in a variety of ways (e.g WS-, TCP) etc.
ADO.NET DATA SERVICES: The quickest way to get up an running with everthing ready to use, all you need todo is configure the global.asax, however you have to use an Entity Data Model, which you many not want to.
Personally, I would use either ADO.NET DATA SERVICES or WCF REST to build an API, consue that API in MVC site and then expose that API either directly, or by passing it through another layer.
ASP.NET MVC can serve as a REST endpoint for light services work, so I guess the answer to your question depends on how you define "safe."
Clearly WCF is designed specifically for creating REST endpoints, with all of the security implications that are implied thereof, whereas ASP.NET MVC is designed to create REST endpoints which can be used by ASP.NET MVC itself.
The following article shows how to create a web service using an ASP.NET MVC controller:
Create REST API using ASP.NET MVC that speaks both Json and plain Xml
http://msmvps.com/blogs/omar/archive/2008/10/03/create-rest-api-using-asp-net-mvc-that-speaks-both-json-and-plain-xml.aspx
See also the following article from Phil Haack, which discusses an SDK the WCF team put together for users of ASP.NET MVC:
Rest For ASP.NET MVC SDK and Sample
http://haacked.com/archive/2009/08/17/rest-for-mvc.aspx
They are two different sets of technologies, only related by being built on .net
MVC is used to create websites and provides a model where URLs are routed to controllers and controllers deliver views to the user as the user interface.
WCF is a set of libraries in .net that are used to abstract the type of service (is it hosted in a windows service, as a webservice in IIS etc.) as well as the protocol (HTTP, TCP, MSMQ etc.) from the client and server which are communicating.
An MVC website may use WCF to connect to a web service, but that is just one of many options.
I have a prototype ASP.NET-MVC website which uses Ninject as a IoC container. All service-classes and repository-classes used by MVC Controllers are properly injected by Ninject. This is great.
The next thing I need to add there is Silverlight (version 3 to be more precise).
Silverlight will be connecting to my server using WCF service, hosted in ASP compatibility mode, to the same ASP.NET-MVC website.
What Silverlight needs is to 'download'/'get' a kind of ViewModel using WCF (the better name would be Client-Side Model). This is also possible - I imported WCF service and setup all security-related xml configuration files.
Here is the stuff I want to know....
Is that OK that model returned by WCF service is rather complex and includes arrays and inheritance (at array items' level)... or maybe there is another and better way to send it from server to client?
At Server-Side for regular asp-mvc stuff all service-classes used by controllers are injected by Ninject. How to inject services for WCF-service classes?
Do WCF service has an access to HttpContext.Current.Items? I need to grab from here logged User Id and a few profile-related data (regular forms auth. stuff).
EDIT
Ad 3. It's possible enabling AspNetCompatibilityRequirements
Has anybody ideas for point 2?
For the 1st Question.
Yes it is okay to return a complex structure, provided you have explicitly applied the '[DataMember]' attribute to each and every needed property of the Object/s.