ASP.NET Web API vs WCF

With Microsoft.NET Stack there are lots of way to create service like ASP.NET Web Service, WCF(Windows Communication Foundation) service and now ASP.NET Web API. The developer often get confused mainly between WCF Service and Web API. So I thought it is a good idea to write a blog post to about differences between ASP.NET Web API and WCF Service.

Difference between ASP.NET Web API  and WCF Service:

1. WCF services support multiple transport support like HTTP,TCP,UDP,MSMQ and allow switching between them while ASP.NET Web API is used only http based services best suited for http service and mobile based application back end service. It is an quick and easy way to create http service.
2. WCF support multiple encodings like Text,MTOM while ASP.NET Web API support wide range of media types like XML,JSON etc.
3. WCF Service support Request-Reply, One way and duplex exchange patterns while HTTP service only support Request/Return pattern.

When to choose? What? WCF or Web API

• Choose WCF if you want to support any other transport protocol then HTTP.
• Choose Web API when you want to create resource oriented services very quickly.
• Choose Web API when you want to serve wide variety of clients like browsers, mobile etc.
• Choose WCF when you want to support message queuing, one way messaging and duplicate message communication.

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Server.Map alternative in WCF - HostingEnvironment.MapPath

If you are ASP.NET programmer then you already know about Server.MapPath. It is used to map a physical location on webserver for asp.net.  You can find more information about Server.MapPath from the following location.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms524632(v=vs.90).aspx

You can still use that in WCF(Windows Communication Foundation) service http bindings. As we know WCF Service can use other non http bindings like TCP/IP,MSMQ and Named Pipe. At that time HttpContext of WCF will be none so server.mappath will not be available as current context is not available. Because its a child class of HttpContext.Current.

HostingEnvironment.MapPath :

HostingEnvironment.MapPath works on all kind of bindings. So when you have other bindings like TCP/IP and MSMQ it will be available as it is inherited from the System.Web.Hosting namespace. You can find more information from below MSDN link.

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Why sometimes it’s not a good idea to use session variables in class library project.

As we all know web pages are stateless pages and we need to use session variables in web application to maintain some session over page. Some time we divide our application into multiple layers for example business logic layer,database layer etc. This all layers will be a class library projects.

So when you have your applications divided into the multiple layers at that time you might need to use session variables in the class library projects. For that we are adding System.Web namespace as a reference to a class library project and then we can use session with HttpContext object. That’s works fine if your layers are going to be used in web application projects. But for example if you have service oriented architecture and your services also access your class libraries via non standard protocol i.e. WCF Service hosted on TCP/IP bindings. At that time sessions will not work.

Instead of that you should always use the parameters in method and avoid direct use of session variables. That parameters will passed either from the web application or from the services which is calling the class libraries.

Hope you liked it. Stay tuned for more..

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How to create overload methods in WCF service with C#

Before some days I have posted an blog about How to create overloaded web methods in asp.net web service? In this post I am going to explain how we can create overload methods in WCF(Windows Communication Foundation) service with C# language.

So let’s consider same Hello world example which we have used web service overload method. Let’s create two methods HelloWorld one is with name and another is without parameter. For WCF service we have to first create interface following is a code for that.

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Difference between Web Service and WCF Service

While taking interviews of .NET developers I often ask this questions. But lots of people don’t know exact difference between this. So, I decided to write a separate blog about this.

Here are the few differences.

• Web services can be hosted in IIS as well as outside of the IIS. While WCF service can be hosted in IIS, Windows activation service,Self Hosting,WAS and on lots of proctols like Named Pipe,TCP etc.Here lots of people disagree how we can host the web service outside of the IIS but Here is the article for that.http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa529311.aspx.
• In Web Services Web Service attribute will added  on the top of class. In WCF there will be a Service Contract attributes will be there. Same way Web Method attribute are added in top of method of Web service while in WCF Service Operation Contract will added on the top method.
• In Web service System.XML.Serialization is supported while in the WCF Service System.RunTime.Serialization is supported.
• WCF Services can be multithreaded via ServiceBehavior class while web service can not be.
• WCF Services supports different type of bindings like BasicHttpBinding, WSHttpBinding, WSDualHttpBinding etc.while Web services only used soap or xml for this.
• Web services are compiled into a class library assembly. A file called the service file is provided that has the extension .asmx and contains an @ WebService directive that identifies the class that contains the code for the service and the assembly in which it is located while in WCF.WCF services can readily be hosted within IIS 5.1 or 6.0, the Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) that is provided as part of IIS 7.0, and within any .NET application. To host a service in IIS 5.1 or 6.0, the service must use HTTP as the communications transport protocol.

Hope this will help you. Happy programming!!!

Technorati Tags: WCF,WebService,ASP.NET

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Collection of WCF (Indigo) links and material

One of my blogging frined Nilang Shah has post our WCF links materials on his blog.

It is a very good collection of WCF. You will have almost all things related to here.

here is the link:
http://nilangshah.wordpress.com/2007/07/16/collection-of-wcf-indigo-links-and-material/

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