<service>

The service element contains the settings for a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service. It also contains endpoints that expose the service.

Schema Hierarchy

<system.serviceModel>
  <services>
    <service>

Syntax

<service behaviorConfiguration=String"
        name="String"
</service>

Attributes and Elements

The following sections describe attributes, child elements, and parent elements.

Attributes

Attribute	Description
behaviorConfiguration	A string that contains the behavior name of the behavior to be used to instantiate the service. The behavior name must be in scope at the point the service is defined. The default value is an empty string.
name	Required String attribute. Specifies the type of the service to be instantiated. This setting must equate to a valid type. The format should be Namespace.Class.

Child Elements

Element	Description
<endpoint> element	A collection of endpoint elements that expose this service.
<host>	Specifies the host of this service instance. This element is of type HostElement.

Parent Elements

Element	Description
<services>	The root element of all WCF configuration elements.

Remarks

Services are defined in the services section of the configuration file. An assembly can contain any number of services. Each service has its own service configuration section. This section and its content define the service contract, behavior, and endpoints of the particular service.

The behaviorConfiguration element is also optional. It identifies the behavior the service uses. The behavior specified in this attribute must link to a behavior in scope in the same configuration file.

Each service exposes one or more endpoints, which has its own address and binding. All bindings used within the configuration file must be defined in the scope of the file. Binding are linked to endpoints through the combination of the attributes name and bindingConfiguration. The name attribute describes the section the binding is defined in. The bindingConfiguration attribute defines which configuration within the binding section is used. A binding section can define several configurations.

Example

This is an example of a service configuration.

<service behaviorConfiguration="testChannelBehavior" 
     name="HelloWorld">
     <endpoint 
        address="/HelloWorld2/"
        name="test"
        bindingNamespace="http://www.cohowinery.com/"
        binding="basicHttpBinding"
        contract="IHelloWorld" />
</service>

See Also

Reference

ServiceElement

Other Resources

Configuring Services

© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Last Published: 2010-01-05