Get an Image using WCF REST service

Objective

This article will give a very simple and basic explanation of , how to fetch an image using WCF REST service.

Step 1

Create a WCF application.  To create a new application File -> New -> Web-> WCF Service Application.

Step 2

Remove all the default code created by WCF. Remove code from IService 1 interface and Service1 class.  Remove the code from Web.Config also. Open Web.Config and remove System.Servicemodel codes.

Step 3

Right click on Service1.svc  select View markup and add below code

<%@ ServiceHost Language="C#" Debug="true" Service="FetchingImageinBrowser.Service1" CodeBehind="Service1.svc.cs" Factory="System.ServiceModel.Activation.WebServiceHostFactory" %>

Step 4

Create contract. Operation contract will return Stream. Stream is in the namespace System.IO. By putting WebGet attribute make operation contract

IService1.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.ServiceModel.Web;
using System.Text;
using System.IO ;
namespace FetchingImageinBrowser
{
    [ServiceContract]
    public interface IService1
    {

        [OperationContract]
        [WebGet(UriTemplate = "GetImage", RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml, BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare)]
        Stream GetImage();
        
    }   
}

Step 5

Implement service. In service class write the below code.  Using FileStream  open and read the image. Then set outgoing response as image/jpeg using WebOperationContext class.

Service1.svc.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.ServiceModel.Web;
using System.Text;
using System.IO ; 

namespace FetchingImageinBrowser
{
    public class Service1 : IService1
    {
        public Stream GetImage()
        {
            FileStream fs = File.OpenRead(@"D:\a.jpg");
            WebOperationContext.Current.OutgoingResponse.ContentType = "image/jpeg";
            return fs; 
        }
        
    }
}

Step 6

Press F5 to run the application. Append GetImage/ in URL to get the output.

 See the URL  
 

Conclusion

In this article, I discussed how to get an image from WCF REST service.  In next articles I will show complete Get and Set image using WCF Rest service.  Thanks for reading.