WCF Metadata publishing and use of DATACONTRACTS

No Datacontracts are not used so they can consumed outside .NET like JAVA / PHP

1)      If enabled, WCF service metadata could be found by opening the http://...svc?wsdl

2)      In there, there is a section types, which refers to an xsd for example http://localhost/LMSService/LMSService.svc?xsd=xsd2

3)      That xsd has all the data types/structures for input and output.

4)      The funny part is, it has all the public properties used in the input/output even if you don’t have DataContract attributes.

So the question is What’s the point of DataContract/DataMember attributes. The above xsd has the datatypes/structures and a PHP/Java client could consume that. The answer is for more control on which properties to be published. So without DataContract/DataMember attribute, its ALL or NONE for all public properties publishing. (Note: You can all together switch off WCF Metadata publishing). With DataContract/DataMember, we have some properties public to be used in our own projects/solution yet not expose it the outside world by not adorning it with DataMember attribute.

Question- ) How to switch off/on WCF metadata publishing

<system.serviceModel>   

    <behaviors>

      <serviceBehaviors>

        <behavior name="metadataBehavior">

          <!—The answer is in the comment line below à

          <!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, set the value below to false and remove the metadata endpoint above before deployment -->

          <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>

          <!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes, set the value below to true.  Set to false before deployment to avoid disclosing exception information -->

          <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false"/>

        </behavior>

      </serviceBehaviors>

    </behaviors>

    <serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />

    <services>

      <service name="SRO.LMS.Services.LMSService" behaviorConfiguration="metadataBehavior">

        <host>

          <baseAddresses>

            <add baseAddress=

                 "http://localhost/LMSService" />

          </baseAddresses>         

        </host>

        <endpoint address="" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="SRO.LMS.Services.ILMSService"/>

        <endpoint address="mex"  binding = "mexHttpBinding" contract = "IMetadataExchange"/>

      </service>

    </services>

  </system.serviceModel>