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Generating a WCF Client from Service Metadata

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This topic describes how to use the various switches in Svcutil.exe to generate clients from metadata documents.

Metadata documents can be on a durable storage or be retrieved online. Online retrieval follows either the WS-MetadataExchange protocol or the Microsoft Discovery (DISCO) protocol. Svcutil.exe issues the following metadata requests simultaneously to retrieve metadata:

  • WS-MetadataExchange (MEX) request to the supplied address.

  • MEX request to the supplied address with /mex appended.

  • DISCO request (using the DiscoveryClientProtocol from ASP.NET Web services) to the supplied address.

Svcutil.exe generates the client based on the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) or policy file received from the service. The user principal name (UPN) is generated by concatenating the user name with "@" and then adding a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN). However, for users who registered on Active Directory, this format is not valid and the UPN that the tool generates causes a failure in the Kerberos authentication with the following error message: The logon attempt failed. To resolve this problem, manually fix the client file that the tool generated.

svcutil.exe [/t:code]  <metadataDocumentPath>* | <url>* | <epr>

Referencing and Sharing Types

Option Description
/reference:<file path> References types in the specified assembly. When generating clients, use this option to specify assemblies that might contain types that represent the metadata being imported.

Short form: /r
/excludeType:<type> Specifies a fully-qualified or assembly-qualified type name to be excluded from referenced contract types.

Short form: /et

Choosing a Serializer

Option Description
/serializer:Auto Automatically selects the serializer. This uses the DataContract serializer. If this fails, the XmlSerializer is used.

Short Form: /ser:Auto
/serializer:DataContractSerializer Generates data types that use the DataContract serializer for serialization and deserialization.

Short form: /ser:DataContractSerializer
/serializer:XmlSerializer Generates data types that use the XmlSerializer for serialization and deserialization.

Short form: /ser:XmlSerializer
/importXmlTypes Configures the DataContract serializer to import non-DataContract types as IXmlSerializable types.

Short form: /ixt
/dataContractOnly Generates code for DataContract types only. ServiceContract types are generated.

You should specify only local metadata files for this option.

Short form: /dconly

Choosing a Language for the Client

Option Description
/language:<language> Specifies the programming language to use for code generation. Provide either a language name registered in the Machine.config file or the fully-qualified name of a class that inherits from CodeDomProvider.

Values: c#, cs, csharp, vb, vbs, visualbasic, vbscript, javascript, c++, mc, cpp

Default: csharp

Short form: /l

For more information, see CodeDomProvider class.

Choosing a Namespace for the Client

Option Description
/namespace:<string,string> Specifies a mapping from a WSDL or XML Schema targetNamespace to a common language runtime (CLR) namespace. Using a wildcard (*) for the targetNamespace maps all targetNamespaces without an explicit mapping to that CLR namespace.

To make sure that the message contract name does not collide with the operation name, either qualify the type reference with double colons (::) or make sure the names are unique.

Default: Derived from the target namespace of the schema document for DataContracts. The default namespace is used for all other generated types.

Short form: /n

Choosing a Data Binding

Option Description
/enableDataBinding Implements the INotifyPropertyChanged interface on all DataContract types to enable data binding.

Short form: /edb

Generating Configuration

Option Description
/config:<configFile> Specifies the file name for the generated configuration file.

Default: output.config
/mergeConfig Merges the generated configuration into an existing file, instead of overwriting the existing file.
/noConfig Do not generate configuration files.

See also