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I created WCF service and faced with a problem. I need to update database periodically, but i couldn't find static method like Main, that whould do it without client interaction. What can i do??? What wold you suggest in such case?

Nate
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2 Answers2

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If your wcf service is self hosted then you can do it in your application before publishing the service.

If it is in IIS then there really isn't application_start kind of thing since the host may be created on first request. See WCF application start event

Community
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Muhammad Hasan Khan
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There is no Main method (or similar entry point) in WCF. You need to host your WCF service in another process (such as a Windows service, or IIS or self host) to "activate" it and make it available to other processes.

One of the concepts in WCF is that you write your service code to do the function you need without having to worry about infrastructure and hosting. Once you have written your service logic, you can then decorate and configure your service to expose it to other processes. Using this approach means you can change how your service is exposed to other processes without re-writing the actual service logic - you essentially just change your configuration. Hence, a main entry point is specific to how you choose to host and expose your WCF service to the outside world.

Just Google around for "WCF hosting" and you will find lots of information.

If you don't need to expose your service logic to an external process (which sounds like maybe the case from your question) then maybe you don't need to use WCF and you can just write a plain old Windows Service.

RobertMS
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  • I am going to assume you are using Visual Studio. Add a new Project and select Windows Service from the list of wizards. Visual Studio will generate the templates and code stubs for a windows service. You will see a Program.cs file and in there is your Main() method. This is your entry point. Since a Windows Service is basically an executable (*.exe) then it needs an entry point. – RobertMS Jun 04 '12 at 14:37