Accessing a WCF Service in an ASP.Net MVC Application

}
public System.Data.DataSet ReturnAuthor()
{
DataSet ds = new DataSet(); DataTable dt = new DataTable("Author");
DataColumn dc1 = new DataColumn("AuthorId", typeof(Int32));
DataColumn dc2 = new DataColumn("Name", typeof(string));
DataColumn dc3 = new DataColumn("Location", typeof(string));

dt.Columns.Add(dc1);
dt.Columns.Add(dc2);
dt.Columns.Add(dc3);
DataRow dr1 = dt.NewRow();
dr1[0] = 10;
dr1[1] = "Krishna Garad";
dr1[2] = "India";
dt.Rows.Add(dr1);
DataRow dr2 = dt.NewRow();
dr2[0] = 20;
dr2[1] = "Mahesh Chand";
dr2[2] = "USA";
dt.Rows.Add(dr2);
ds.Tables.Add(dt);
return ds;
}
}

Now run the service application and copy the address.

Creating MVC client Application

Start a new MVC web application; add the controller in the controller folder with the name Home. Now add the service reference by right-clicking on the solution and selecting Service Reference and paste the copied address in the address box in the opened dialog like below.



Now we also have a service reference, so create the proxy for our WCF service like below in the Home controller.

ClientAuthorReference.ServiceAuthorClient obj = new ClientAuthorReference.ServiceAuthorClient();

Still now we have a proxy for our WCF service; now we can call the methods of our WCF service. On start up only we will show the AuthorList return from WCF service so in the Index Action write the following code and add the view to display the List of Authors.

public ActionResult Index()
{
DataSet ds = obj.ReturnAuthor();
ViewBag.AuthorList = ds.Tables[0];
return View();
}

Add a view to display the list of Authors by looping over the DataTables which we supplied to ViewBag. Write the following code in your aspx page.

<table>
<tr><td>AuthorId</td><td>Name</td><td>Location</td></tr>
<%foreach (System.Data.DataRow dr in ViewBag.AuthorList.Rows)
{%>
<tr>
<td><%=dr["AuthorId"].ToString()%></td>
<td><%=dr["Name"].ToString() %></td>
<td><%=dr["Location"].ToString() %></td>
</tr>
<% } %>
</table>

In the above markup we are simply reading each row and displaying on the page. Now run the application and view the Author List returned from WCF service.

Conclusion

In this way we can use a WCF service as a Model for our MVC application.