How to read incoming and outgoing message in wcf

In this post, I will show you how to read the outgoing and incoming message in WCF. Create a new console application and add the following assembly reference in the project

using System.ServiceModel;
using System.ServiceModel.Description;

and paste following code

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.ServiceModel.Description;

namespace WCF_MessageInspector
{
    [ServiceContract]
    public interface IHelloService
    {
        [OperationContract]
        string Greet(string name);
    }
    [ConsoleServiceBehavior]
    [ServiceBehavior]
    public class HelloService : IHelloService
    {
        public string Greet(string name)
        {
            return "Hello ," + name;
        }
    }

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string baseUrl = "http://localhost:12345";
            ServiceHost host = new ServiceHost(typeof(HelloService), new Uri(baseUrl));
            host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IHelloService), new BasicHttpBinding(), "basic");
            // Check to see if the service host already has a ServiceMetadataBehavior
            ServiceMetadataBehavior smb = host.Description.Behaviors.Find<ServiceMetadataBehavior>();
            // If not, add one
            if (smb == null)
                smb = new ServiceMetadataBehavior();
            smb.HttpGetEnabled = true;
            smb.MetadataExporter.PolicyVersion = PolicyVersion.Policy15;
            host.Description.Behaviors.Add(smb);

            host.Open();
            Console.WriteLine("Service is ready");
            Console.Read();
        }
    }
}

Create a new class named ConsoleMessageInspector and inherit it from following interfaces

IClientMessageInspector

IDispatchMessageInspector

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher;
using System.ServiceModel.Channels;

namespace WCF_MessageInspector
{
    public class ConsoleMessageInspector : IClientMessageInspector, IDispatchMessageInspector
    {
        public Message CreateMessage(Message message)
        {
            MessageBuffer buffer = message.CreateBufferedCopy(Int32.MaxValue);
            var messageCopy = buffer.CreateMessage();
            Console.WriteLine(messageCopy.ToString());
            return buffer.CreateMessage();

        }
        public object AfterReceiveRequest(ref System.ServiceModel.Channels.Message request, System.ServiceModel.IClientChannel channel, System.ServiceModel.InstanceContext instanceContext)
        {
            request = CreateMessage(request);
            return null;
        }

        public void BeforeSendReply(ref System.ServiceModel.Channels.Message reply, object correlationState)
        {
            reply = CreateMessage(reply);
        }

        public void AfterReceiveReply(ref System.ServiceModel.Channels.Message reply, object correlationState)
        {
            reply = CreateMessage(reply);
        }

        public object BeforeSendRequest(ref System.ServiceModel.Channels.Message request, System.ServiceModel.IClientChannel channel)
        {
            request = CreateMessage(request);
            return null;
        }
    }
}

Create a new class named ConsoleEndpointBehavior and inherit it from following iterface

IEndpointBehavior

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.ServiceModel.Description;

namespace WCF_MessageInspector
{
   public class ConsoleEndpointBehavior:IEndpointBehavior
    {

        public void AddBindingParameters(ServiceEndpoint endpoint, System.ServiceModel.Channels.BindingParameterCollection bindingParameters)
        {
            
        }

        public void ApplyClientBehavior(ServiceEndpoint endpoint, System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ClientRuntime clientRuntime)
        {
            clientRuntime.MessageInspectors.Add(new ConsoleMessageInspector());
        }

        public void ApplyDispatchBehavior(ServiceEndpoint endpoint, System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.EndpointDispatcher endpointDispatcher)
        {
            endpointDispatcher.DispatchRuntime.MessageInspectors.Add(new ConsoleMessageInspector());
        }

        public void Validate(ServiceEndpoint endpoint)
        {
            
        }
    }
}

Now it’s time to apply custom inspector to the service.For this create a new class named ConsoleServiceBehavior and inherit it from Attribute and IServiceBehavior

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.ServiceModel.Description;

namespace WCF_MessageInspector
{
   public class ConsoleServiceBehavior:Attribute,IServiceBehavior
    {
        public void AddBindingParameters(ServiceDescription serviceDescription, System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostBase serviceHostBase, System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection<ServiceEndpoint> endpoints, System.ServiceModel.Channels.BindingParameterCollection bindingParameters)
        {
            
        }

        public void ApplyDispatchBehavior(ServiceDescription serviceDescription, System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostBase serviceHostBase)
        {
            foreach (var item in serviceHostBase.Description.Endpoints)
            {
                item.Behaviors.Add(new ConsoleEndpointBehavior());
            }
        }

        public void Validate(ServiceDescription serviceDescription, System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostBase serviceHostBase)
        {
            
        }
    }
}

Create a new Project named client and add service reference

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace Client
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Proxy.HelloServiceClient client = new Proxy.HelloServiceClient();
            Console.WriteLine(client.Greet("Bill"));
        }
    }
}

Run both the application,and you will show that incoming and outgoing messages are captured