WCF - Difference Between Service Application and Service Library: Day 5

1. Day 1 - WCF Introduction and Contracts
2. Day 2 - WCF Fault Contracts
3. Day 3 - WCF Message Exchange Patterns
4. Day 4 - WCF DataContract

Introduction

Differences between Service Application and Server Library

1. The very basic point is that you need to select a "WCF Service Application" template under the WCF project type at the time of project creation. In other words when you create the project from File >> New >> Project, select the WCF as project type from the left side of the screen and select "WCF Service Application" from the template. Select your desired location and provide an appropriate name for your project and press the "OK" button.
   
   
   
   For a WCF Service Library you need to select "WCF Service Library" template at the time of project creation.
   
   
   
2. After creating the projects, compare the files created by Visual Studio IDE.
   
   In the Service Application we have a service contract i.e. IService1 for the service implementation and Service1 as a Web.config file.
   
   
   
   In the Service Library we also have a service contract i.e. IService1 for the service implementation and Service1 as an App.config file for the configuration (instead of web.config as in the Service Application).
   
   
   
   The major difference is that the WCF Service Application has a .svc file, whereas the Service Library does not have a .svc file. Suppose we want to host this service application in IIS, then you need to specify for IIS the execution runtime environment requirements.
   
   In a web application we set an .aspx, similarly for a Service Application we need to set a .svc.
   
3. Run the WCF Service Application and it will show a directory listing, as in: