SOA

WCF & Using Statements

sweisfeld — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:29:00 GMT

I was attending the Dallas Connected Systems UG last night (http://biztalkusergroup.com/) and during the presentation I made the bold assertion that one should NOT use the "using statement" when working with WCF. Now I am a HUGE proponent of the using statement in normal circumstances. IMHO if it implements IDisposable use the using statement, except with WCF. This has to do with the way that WCF errors out and when that happens how the connection gets closed. . .

Doing my best LeVar Burton "But you don't have to take my word for it" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Rainbow). Microsoft even says it in the documentation, "You should not use the using statement (Using in Visual Basic) because it may mask exceptions in certain failure modes. " (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms735103.aspx)

Also check out a post by Dan Rigsby that goes into more detail. http://www.danrigsby.com/blog/index.php/2008/02/26/dont-wrap-wcf-service-hosts-or-clients-in-a-using-statement/

Unable to connect to the remote server

sweisfeld — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:28:00 GMT

When attempting to call a webservice that lives outside my corperate firewall I was getting the following error:

System.Net.WebException was unhandled by user code
Message="Unable to connect to the remote server"
Source="System"
StackTrace:
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream()
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] parameters)

After some research I stumbled across this post by Rick Strahl
http://west-wind.com/weblog/posts/3871.aspx

but my problem was a little bit different. In his case he desired to disable to the automatic proxy detection, but I needed to wire in the script that my corperate IT department requires that we use. Easy enough just add the following to the web.config

<system.net>
  <defaultProxy>
   <proxy scriptLocation ="url to script here" />
  </defaultProxy>
</system.net>

I think the cause of my problem was the same as Ricks. Everything works fine when using a console application running as me, but when I put the same method call in a web app runing as network service it appears that he doesnt have enough permissions to get the script location from the registry.

Fiddler Web Debugging Proxy

sweisfeld — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 19:00:00 GMT

Went to an MSDN event by Russ (http://blogs.msdn.com/rfustino/) a few weeks ago and during his demo he displayed this cool tool called Fiddler (http://www.fiddler2.com/). A must have debugging tool for any Smart Client or Web Developer.

Fiddler is a Web Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP(S) traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler includes a powerful event-based scripting subsystem, and can be extended using any .NET language.

Fiddler is freeware and can debug traffic from virtually any application, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and thousands more.

.NET 3.0 Released (WCF, WWF, WPF)

sweisfeld — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 18:10:00 GMT

The Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (formerly WinFX), is the new managed code programming model for Windows. It combines the power of the .NET Framework 2.0 with four new technologies: Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), and Windows CardSpace (WCS, formerly “InfoCard”). Use the .NET Framework 3.0 today to build applications that have visually compelling user experiences, seamless communication across technology boundaries, the ability to support a wide range of business processes, and an easier way to manage your personal information online. This is the same great WinFX technology you know and love, now with a new name that identifies it for exactly what it is – the next version of Microsoft’s development framework.

More info and download at http://www.netfx3.com/