How to generate code for WCF with svcutil and xsd files?

Question

I have a set of xsd files that define an XML message protocol for communications between devices. I'm planning to use WCF at one end. I'm hoping that there is a way to automate generation of classes based on the xsd files that I could use with WCF. Am I on the right track?

I'm aware of svcutil.exe and xsd.exe but a quick try gave me somewhat disappointing results. For example, "svcutil /dconly" command generated C# classes that contained only code related to xml serialization (e.g. WriteXml(), ReadXml(), etc.). There were no other properties generated.

This is not the only problem that I'm facing. Even if I succeed with generation of code from xsd I will still not be sure how to plug it into WCF.

Could someone please give some general idea how to deal with it? A simple example or a pointer to one would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

What you need to generate WCF service or client code using svcutil is a wsdl file. The wsdl describes the name of the service, witch methods will be available and references the xsd files witch contain the description of your data.