How to read stream from WCF service

Question

Hi, I have created a WCF service to stream files(download). Code for the service is below

public Stream GetCoverScan(List<string> productIDs)
{
    FileStream stream = new FileStream("", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
    return stream;
}

Can some one tell me how do i consume this on the client side. I have already created a proxy on client and i can see the method by creating an object of the service, but how do i read the stream.

Please advise

Configuration

<system.serviceModel>
    <bindings>
        <basicHttpBinding>
            <binding name="StreamedHttp" transferMode="StreamedResponse"
                     maxReceivedMessageSize="67108864">
            </binding>
        </basicHttpBinding>
    </bindings>
    <services>
        <service name="Streaming.Service1"
                 behaviorConfiguration="Streaming.Service1Behavior">
            <endpoint address="" bindingConfiguration="StreamedHttp"
                      binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="Streaming.IService1">
            </endpoint>
        </service>
    </services>
    <behaviors>
        <serviceBehaviors>
            <behavior name="Streaming.Service1Behavior">
                <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
                <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false"/>
            </behavior>
        </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>

Contract

[ServiceContract]
public interface IService1
{
    [OperationContract]
    string GetData(string name);

    [OperationContract]
    System.IO.Stream GetCoverScan(List<string> productIDs);
}

bindings

</bindings>

Answer 1

You need to configure streaming on the binding you use. Streaming is supported for BasicHttpBinding, NetTcpBinding, and NetNamedPipeBinding. So if you have a BasicHttpBinding, your configuration should look like this:

<basicHttpBinding>
    <binding name="HttpStreaming" maxReceivedMessageSize="67108864"
             transferMode="StreamedResponse"/>
</basicHttpBinding>

I use StreamedResponse here because you only have a response that should be a stream, not a request.

How you read the stream itself depends on what's in it. Suppose you send a text file over a stream, you can use a StreamReader:

var reader = new StreamReader(service.GetCoverScan(...));
string contents = reader.ReadToEnd();

If you send an xml file, you can read it through XDocument:

var doc = XDocument.Load(service.GetCoverScan(...));

So it really depends on what you're sending over the wire.