Expose WCF services that belong to an Area in MVC app at a routed path

asp.net-mvc, wcf

Solution

If you have the liberty to use .Net 4.0 you might want to consider making your WCF service available via a ServiceRoute rather than via a .svc file.

This will enable you to avoid having the TestService.svc file with a TestService.svc.cs code-behind. In your Global.asax.cs you will have the following:

public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes, IUnityContainer container)
{
    ... other MVC route mapping ....
    routes.Add(new ServiceRoute("TestService", new ServiceHostFactory(), typeof(LoaEvents)));
}

Your service should then be accessible via `http://my-host/TestService`.

You might be able to change the `"TestService"` argument to `"/content/services/TestService"` or something that works better for your needs.

Problem

I've got a WCF service (lets say `TestService.svc` sitting inside the `services` directory of an Area in an MVC app. This area is combined into the main app. The area is called `content`. The routes have been setup and the area works fine. To access the `Index` action on the `Home` controller I can do either: `http://my-host/areas/content/index/home` or `http://my-host/content/index/home` The SVC file however can only be accessed via: `http://my-host/areas/content/services/TestService.svc` The URL must include the `areas` directory, I can't access it directly via `http://my-host/content/services/TestService.svc`. If I try I am given an error 404. Is there a way to setup the application so that it routes the SVC request through the same route table as the controllers? I don't want to have to use `areas` for the services.

Original source