Enabling Help page for REST Service in WCF 4.0

Objective

In this article, I will show you

1.    How to create a REST based service?
2.    How to host a REST based service in Console application?
3.    How to enable Help page for REST Service?

Follow the steps as below,

Step1

Create a New project. Select Console application as project type. 

Step 2

Add a new project to same solution.  Choose the project type as class library. 

Step 3

Add below references in both projects console and service library

System.ServiceModel;
System.ServiceModel.Description;
System.ServiceModel.Web;

If you are not able to get System.ServiceModel.Web  dll  by default , when you are adding as Add Reference in your console application project and class library project  , then follow the below steps

1.    Right click on your console application project or class library project
2.    Select properties from context menu
3.    From Application tab, if you see by default .NET Framework 4 Client profile is selected. Change that to .NET Framework 4.0. So your target framework should be .NET Framework 4.0.

Now you should able to see all the dll when you add service reference in project.

Step 4

In this step, I will create contract of service

1.    Open the Contract (Class Library project).
2.    Delete Class1.
3.    Right click and add a new item then select Interface from Code tab. 

4.    Make Interface as public and put ServiceContract attribute.
5.    Declare two operation contracts. Make one attributed with WebGet and another attributed with Web Invoke.

IService.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.ServiceModel.Web; 

namespace Contracts
{
    [ServiceContract]publicinterface IService
    {
        [OperationContract]
        [WebGet]string GetMessage(string inputMessage);

        [OperationContract]
        [WebInvoke]string PostMessage(string inputMessage);
    }
}

 Step 5

In this step, I will implement the contract in Service file. To do so,

1.    Right click and add a class in Console application. 

2.    Give any name; I am giving name here Service of the class.
3.    Implement the interface (Contract IService) in this class.

Service.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Contracts;

namespace SelfHostedRESTService
{publicclass Service :IService
    {public string GetMessage(string inputMessage)
        {return "Calling Get for you " + inputMessage; 
        }public string PostMessage(string inputMessage)
     {return "Calling Post for you " + inputMessage; 
     }
    }
}

 Step 6

In this step, I will host the service in a console application. So to do so

1.    Open Program.cs
2.    Create instanced of WebServieceHostFactory 

3.    Add a service end point 

4.    Add service host behavior  with help page enabled 

As we know, REST service used webHttpBindding.  And we are enabling Help page here.

Program.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.ServiceModel.Description;
using System.ServiceModel.Web;
using Contracts; 

namespace SelfHostedRESTService
{class Program
    {static void Main(string[] args)
        {



            WebServiceHost host = new WebServiceHost(typeof(Service), new Uri("http://localhost:8000"));
            ServiceEndpoint ep = host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IService), new WebHttpBinding(), "");

            host.Description.Endpoints[0].Behaviors.Add(new WebHttpBehavior { HelpEnabled = true });           
            host.Open();
            Console.WriteLine("Service is up and running");
            Console.WriteLine("Press enter to quit ");
            Console.ReadLine();
            host.Close();
          


        }
    }
}

 Step 7

Just press F5 to run the service. 

Now once service is up and running, I can test,   

To test the Help page, just type 

When you click on Get or Post link you will get below detail help. 

I hope this post was useful. Thanks for reading. Happy coding .