Saturday, December 26, 2009

WCF Interview Question

When not to use Design Patterns
Do not use design patterns in any of the following situations.

• When the software being designed would not change with time.
• When the requirements of the source code of the application are unique.

If any of the above applies in the current software design, there is no need to apply design patterns in the current design and increase unnecessary complexity in the design.

What do you mean by three-tier architecture?
The three-tier architecture was comes into existence to improve management of code and contents and to improve the performance of the web based applications. There are mainly three layers in three-tier architecture. the are define as follows
(1)Presentation
(2)Business Logic
(3)Database

(1)First layer Presentation contains mainly the interface code, and this is shown to user. This code could contain any technology that can be used on the client side like HTML, JavaScript or VBScript etc.

(2)Second layer is Business Logic which contains all the code of the server-side .This layer have code to interact with database and to query, manipulate, pass data to user interface and handle any input from the UI as well.

(3)Third layer Data represents the data store like MS Access, SQL Server, an XML file, an Excel file or even a text file containing data also some additional database are also added to that layers.


What is WCF?
The Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a next generation graphics platform that is part of .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5. It allows you to build advanced user interfaces that incorporate documents, media, 2D and 3D graphics, animations, and web-like characteristics. In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, you will be able to begin effectively using WPF to solve real-world problems, developing rich user interfaces in less time than you thought possible. Using a straightforward, step-by-step approach, each lesson builds on a real-world foundation forged in both technology and business matters, allowing you to learn the essentials of WPF from the ground up. *Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common questions, issues, and tasks. *The Q&A sections, quizzes, and exercises help you build and test your knowledge. *By the Way notes present interesting pieces of information. *Did You Know? Tips offer advice or teach an easier way to do something. *Watch Out! Cautions advise you about potential problems and help you steer clear of disaster. Learn how to... *Use XAML to build user interfaces *Leverage data binding to minimize tedious code *Create visually engaging applications *Architect and design WPF applications using proven patterns such as MVP *Incorporate audio and video into your applications *Customize controls with styles, templates, and animation *Apply best practices for developing software with WPF *Deploy WPF applications to the desktop and Web *Take advantage of WPF¡¯s advanced printing capabilities *Grow as a developer by improving your overall software design skills.

Difference between WCF and Web services?

Web Services

1.It Can be accessed only over HTTP
2.It works in stateless environment

WCF

WCF is flexible because its services can be hosted in different types of applications. The following lists several common scenarios for hosting WCF services:
IIS
WAS
Self-hosting
Managed Windows Service

Web services can only be invoked by HTTP (traditional webservice with .asmx). While WCF Service or a WCF component can be invoked by any protocol (like http, tcp etc.) and any transport type.

Second web services are not flexible. However, WCF Services are flexible. If you make a new version of the service then you need to just expose a new end. Therefore, services are agile and which is a very practical approach looking at the current business trends.

We develop WCF as contracts, interface, operations, and data contracts. As the developer we are more focused on the business logic services and need not worry about channel stack. WCF is a unified programming API for any kind of services so we create the service and use configuration information to set up the communication mechanism like HTTP/TCP/MSMQ etc

What are the various ways of hosting a WCF service?
Self hosting the service in his own application domain. The service comes in to existence when you create the object of ServiceHost class and the service closes when you call the Close of the ServiceHost class.
Host in application domain or process provided by IIS Server.
Host in Application domain and process provided by WAS (Windows Activation Service) Server.

What is three major points in WCF?
We Should remember ABC.

Address --- Specifies the location of the service which will be like http://Myserver/MyService.Clients will use this location to communicate with our service.

Binding --- Specifies how the two paries will communicate in term of transport and encoding and protocols

Contract --- Specifies the interface between client and the server.It's a simple interface with some attribute.


The code name of WCF was Indigo .

WCF is a unification of .NET framework communication technologies which unites the following technologies:-

NET remoting
MSMQ
Web services
COM+

What are the main components of WCF?
The main components of WCF are

1. Service class
2. Hosting environment
3. End point
How to set the timeout property for the WCF Service client call?
The timeout property can be set for the WCF Service client call using binding tag.



If no timeout has been specified, the default is considered as 1 minute.

How to deal with operation overloading while exposing the WCF services?

By default overload operations (methods) are not supported in WSDL based operation. However by using Name property of OperationContract attribute, we can deal with operation overloading scenario.
[ServiceContract]

interface ICalculator

{

[OperationContract(Name = "AddInt")]

int Add(int arg1,int arg2);

[OperationContract(Name = "AddDouble")]

double Add(double arg1,double arg2);

}


Notice that both method name in the above interface is same (Add), however the Name property of the OperationContract is different. In this case client proxy will have two methods with different name AddInt and AddDouble.

How to configure Reliability while communicating with WCF Services?
Reliability can be configured in the client config file by adding reliableSession under binding tag.
Reliability is supported by following bindings only

NetTcpBinding
WSHttpBinding
WSFederationHttpBinding
WSDualHttpBinding

What is Transport and Message Reliability?
Transport reliability (such as the one offered by TCP) offers point-to-point guaranteed delivery at the network packet level, as well as guarantees the order of the packets. Transport reliability is not resilient to dropping network connections and a variety of other communication problems.

Message reliability deals with reliability at the message level independent of how many packets are required to deliver the message. Message reliability provides for end-to-end guaranteed delivery and order of messages, regardless of how many intermediaries are involved, and how many network hops are required to deliver the message from the client to the service.

What are different elements of WCF Srevices Client configuration file?
WCF Services client configuration file contains endpoint, address, binding and contract. A sample client config file looks like


What is Proxy and how to generate proxy for WCF Services?
The proxy is a CLR class that exposes a single CLR interface representing the service contract. The proxy provides the same operations as service's contract, but also has additional methods for managing the proxy life cycle and the connection to the service. The proxy completely encapsulates every aspect of the service: its location, its implementation technology and runtime platform, and the communication transport.

The proxy can be generated using Visual Studio by right clicking Reference and clicking on Add Service Reference. This brings up the Add Service Reference dialog box, where you need to supply the base address of the service (or a base address and a MEX URI) and the namespace to contain the proxy.

Proxy can also be generated by using SvcUtil.exe command-line utility. We need to provide SvcUtil with the HTTP-GET address or the metadata exchange endpoint address and, optionally, with a proxy filename. The default proxy filename is output.cs but you can also use the /out switch to indicate a different name.

SvcUtil http://localhost/MyService/MyService.svc /out:Proxy.cs

When we are hosting in IIS and selecting a port other than port 80 (such as port 88), we must provide that port number as part of the base address:

SvcUtil http://localhost:88/MyService/MyService.svc /out:Proxy.cs

What are contracts in WCF?
In WCF, all services expose contracts. The contract is a platform-neutral and standard way of describing what the service does.

WCF defines four types of contracts.
Service contracts

Describe which operations the client can perform on the service.
There are two types of Service Contracts.
ServiceContract - This attribute is used to define the Interface.
OperationContract - This attribute is used to define the method inside Interface.
[ServiceContract]

interface IMyContract

{

[OperationContract]

string MyMethod( );

}

class MyService : IMyContract

{

public string MyMethod( )

{

return "Hello World";

}

}


Data contracts

Define which data types are passed to and from the service. WCF defines implicit contracts for built-in types such as int and string, but we can easily define explicit opt-in data contracts for custom types.

There are two types of Data Contracts.
DataContract - attribute used to define the class
DataMember - attribute used to define the properties.
[DataContract]

class Contact

{

[DataMember]

public string FirstName;


[DataMember]

public string LastName;

}
If DataMember attributes are not specified for a properties in the class, that property can't be passed to-from web service.

Fault contracts

Define which errors are raised by the service, and how the service handles and propagates errors to its clients.
Message contracts

Allow the service to interact directly with messages. Message contracts can be typed or untyped, and are useful in interoperability cases and when there is an existing message format we have to comply with.

What is the address formats of the WCF transport schemas?
Address format of WCF transport schema always follow

[transport]://[machine or domain][:optional port] format.

for example:

HTTP Address Format

http://localhost:8888
the way to read the above url is

"Using HTTP, go to the machine called localhost, where on port 8888 someone is waiting"
When the port number is not specified, the default port is 80.

TCP Address Format
net.tcp://localhost:8888/MyService

When a port number is not specified, the default port is 808:

net.tcp://localhost/MyService

NOTE: Two HTTP and TCP addresses from the same host can share a port, even on the same machine.

IPC Address Format
net.pipe://localhost/MyPipe

We can only open a named pipe once per machine, and therefore it is not possible for two named pipe addresses to share a pipe name on the same machine.

MSMQ Address Format
net.msmq://localhost/private/MyService
net.msmq://localhost/MyService

How to define a service as REST based service in WCF?
WCF 3.5 provides explicit support for RESTful communication using a new binding named WebHttpBinding.
The below code shows how to expose a RESTful service
[ServiceContract]

interface IStock

{

[OperationContract]

[WebGet]

int GetStock(string StockId);

}
By adding the WebGetAttribute, we can define a service as REST based service that can be accessible using HTTP GET operation.

What is endpoint in WCF?
Every service must have Address that defines where the service resides, Contract that defines what the service does and a Binding that defines how to communicate with the service. In WCF the relationship between Address, Contract and Binding is called Endpoint.

The Endpoint is the fusion of Address, Contract and Binding.

What is binding and how many types of bindings are there in WCF?
A binding defines how an endpoint communicates to the world. A binding defines the transport (such as HTTP or TCP) and the encoding being used (such as text or binary). A binding can contain binding elements that specify details like the security mechanisms used to secure messages, or the message pattern used by an endpoint.

WCF supports nine types of bindings.

Basic binding

Offered by the BasicHttpBinding class, this is designed to expose a WCF service as a legacy ASMX web service, so that old clients can work with new services. When used by the client, this binding enables new WCF clients to work with old ASMX services.

TCP binding

Offered by the NetTcpBinding class, this uses TCP for cross-machine communication on the intranet. It supports a variety of features, including reliability, transactions, and security, and is optimized for WCF-to-WCF communication. As a result, it requires both the client and the service to use WCF.


Peer network binding

Offered by the NetPeerTcpBinding class, this uses peer networking as a transport. The peer network-enabled client and services all subscribe to the same grid and broadcast messages to it.


IPC binding

Offered by the NetNamedPipeBinding class, this uses named pipes as a transport for same-machine communication. It is the most secure binding since it cannot accept calls from outside the machine and it supports a variety of features similar to the TCP binding.


Web Service (WS) binding

Offered by the WSHttpBinding class, this uses HTTP or HTTPS for transport, and is designed to offer a variety of features such as reliability, transactions, and security over the Internet.


Federated WS binding

Offered by the WSFederationHttpBinding class, this is a specialization of the WS binding, offering support for federated security.


Duplex WS binding

Offered by the WSDualHttpBinding class, this is similar to the WS binding except it also supports bidirectional communication from the service to the client.


MSMQ binding

Offered by the NetMsmqBinding class, this uses MSMQ for transport and is designed to offer support for disconnected queued calls.


MSMQ integration binding

Offered by the MsmqIntegrationBinding class, this converts WCF messages to and from MSMQ messages, and is designed to interoperate with legacy MSMQ clients.

Where we can host WCF services?
Every WCF services must be hosted somewhere. There are three ways of hosting WCF services.

They are

1. IIS
2. Self Hosting
3. WAS (Windows Activation Service)

What is address in WCF and how many types of transport schemas are there in WCF?
Address is a way of letting client know that where a service is located. In WCF, every service is associated with a unique address. This contains the location of the service and transport schemas.

WCF supports following transport schemas

HTTP
TCP
Peer network
IPC (Inter-Process Communication over named pipes)
MSMQ

The sample address for above transport schema may look like

http://localhost:81
http://localhost:81/MyService
net.tcp://localhost:82/MyService
net.pipe://localhost/MyPipeService
net.msmq://localhost/private/MyMsMqService
net.msmq://localhost/MyMsMqService

What is service and client in perspective of data communication?
A service is a unit of functionality exposed to the world.
The client of a service is merely the party consuming the service.