Is it possible to use “add service reference” option to add a self-hosted service in WCF?

Question

I am creating a WCF service. At first I had one WCF service library project and one console project which was referencing the this library. And it worked fine when I used "add service reference" in my client project, as long as the service library had a valid App.Config file.

However, now I want to combine the service library and the console host into one console project. After all, the previous console project was pretty simple. But here comes the problem: when I choose "add service reference" and give the endpoint I defined in the App.config file of the new console project, it can't find any service reference. I take it because the service will not be hostedd by wcfsvchost.exe when the add service reference function was on(and I think it makes sense). But I can't think of a way to make it work. So how am I supposed to add a service reference, if my service is one single console-hosted project?

Answer 1

The easiest way for you is to run WCF service, generate a service reference and then combine it into single application. All you will need to do is just change address in your app.config. But be careful with this, as you should change address for client part and not server part of app.config.

This approach, however, will be difficult to maintain in future, when you will decide to change your service data contract and regenerate service reference. You might want to consider the following: wrap service reference into assembly and use assembly instead. This way you will be able to regenerate you service reference whenever needed.