WCF: Using Shared Types

In WCF you can use shared types from existing assemblies when generating a service proxy. Use the advanced options in VS2008, otherwise use SVCUTIL.EXE with the /reference /r option. Note that you can only use /reference when your WSDL operations, types and messages adheres to the DataContractSerializer rules that I described this spring.

I'm currently trying to research why we are not able to use shared types for our wsdl:fault message parts.

<wsdl:message name="GetCustomerRequest">
<wsdl:part element="tns:GetCustomerRequest" name="parameters" />
</wsdl:message>
<wsdl:message name="GetCustomerResponse">
<wsdl:part element="tns:GetCustomerResponse" name="parameters" />
</wsdl:message>
<wsdl:message name="FaultDetailList">
<wsdl:part element="fault:FaultDetailList" name="detail" />
</wsdl:message>

<wsdl:portType name="CustomerService">
<wsdl:operation name="GetCustomer">
<wsdl:input message="tns:GetCustomerRequest" name="GetCustomerRequest" />
<wsdl:output message="tns:GetCustomerResponse" name="GetCustomerResponse" />
<wsdl:fault message="tns:FaultDetailList" name="FaultDetailList" />
</wsdl:operation>
</wsdl:portType>

<wsdl:binding name="CustomerServiceSoap11" type="tns:CustomerService">
<soap:binding style="document" transport="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http" />
<wsdl:operation name="GetCustomer">
<soap:operation soapAction="" />
<wsdl:input name="GetCustomerRequest">
<soap:body use="literal" />
</wsdl:input>
<wsdl:output name="GetCustomerResponse">
<soap:body use="literal" />
</wsdl:output>
<wsdl:fault name="FaultDetailList">
<soap:fault name="FaultDetailList" use="literal" />
</wsdl:fault>
</wsdl:operation>
</wsdl:binding>

Even if the fault details contains only xs:string elements, we get this error when generating the proxy:

Cannot import wsdl:portTypeDetail: An exception was thrown while running a WSDL import extension: System.ServiceModel.Description.DataContractSerializerMessageContractImporterError: Referenced type 'SharedDataContracts.FaultDetailType, MyService, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' with data contract name 'FaultDetailType' in namespace 'urn:kjellsj.blogspot.com/FaultDetail/1.0' cannot be used since it does not match imported DataContract. Need to exclude this type from referenced types.

I thought that writing a unit-test to import the WSDL using the underlying SVCUTIL importer directly should help me deduce the cause of the error. You will find all the code that you need to import WSDL using DataContractSerializerMessageContractImporter here at the "nV Framework for Enterprise Integration" project as CodePlex.

Add these lines to enforce the use of /namespace, /reference and /ct from code (note that these switches can be used multiple times):

xsdDataContractImporter.Options.Namespaces. Add(new KeyValuePair<string, string>("*", "MyService"));
xsdDataContractImporter.Options.ReferencedCollectionTypes. Add(typeof(List<>));
xsdDataContractImporter.Options.ReferencedTypes. Add(typeof(SharedDataContracts.FaultDetailList));
xsdDataContractImporter.Options.ReferencedTypes. Add(typeof(SharedDataContracts.FaultDetailType));

Sure enough, I get the exact same exception in my unit-test. Inspecting the imported contract shows that the operation has a fault with a "null" DetailType XML Schema type (watch: contracts[0].Operations[0].Faults[0].DetailType). I suspect that it is the "null" DetailType in the FaultDescription of the imported ServiceDescription for the WSDL that causes the error for the referenced shared types.

As it turns out this is a bug that has been fixed in .NET 3.5 SP1. The workaround for earlier versions of SVCUTIL is to add nillable="true" to all elements that are reference types (strings and complexTypes) in your wsdl:types XSD schemas. Or just drop the /reference switch and cut'n'paste the generated code to use your shared types.