Setting custom WCF-binding behaviour via .config file - why doesn't this work?

Question

I am attempting to insert a custom behavior into my service client, following the example here.

I appear to be following all of the steps, but I am getting a ConfigurationErrorsException. Is there anyone more experienced than me who can spot what I'm doing wrong?

Here is the entire app.config file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
    <system.serviceModel>
        <behaviors>
            <endpointBehaviors>
                <behavior name="ClientLoggingEndpointBehaviour">
                    <myLoggerExtension />
                </behavior>
            </endpointBehaviors>
        </behaviors>
        <extensions>
            <behaviorExtensions>
                <add name="myLoggerExtension"
                     type="ChatClient.ClientLoggingEndpointBehaviourExtension, ChatClient, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null"/>
            </behaviorExtensions>
        </extensions>
        <bindings>
        </bindings>
        <client>
            <endpoint
                behaviorConfiguration="ClientLoggingEndpointBehaviour"
                name="ChatRoomClientEndpoint"
                address="http://localhost:8016/ChatRoom"
                binding="wsDualHttpBinding"
                contract="ChatRoomLib.IChatRoom"
                />
        </client>
    </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

Here is the exception message:

An error occurred creating the configuration section handler for system.serviceModel/behaviors: Extension element 'myLoggerExtension' cannot be added to this element. Verify that the extension is registered in the extension collection at system.serviceModel/extensions/behaviorExtensions. Parameter name: element (C:\Documents and Settings\Andrew Shepherd\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\WcfPractice\ChatClient\bin\Debug\ChatClient.vshost.exe.config line 5)

I know that I've correctly written the reference to the ClientLoggingEndpointBehaviourExtensionobject, because through the debugger I can see it being instantiated.

Answer 1

It turns out that I didn't get the assembly qualified name EXACTLY right. The assembly qualified name was correct enough for the .NET framework to load, but then the WCF framework performs a naive character-by-character comparison when matching the behavior configurations.

To finally get the exact type name, I wrote code to create an instance of ClientLoggingEndpointBehaviourExtension object, and wrote the AssemblyQualifiedName property to a local variable, which I then copy-and-pasted from the debug window into the .config file.

That I had to do all this is considered to be a bug in the WCF framework. (See this link) Apparently it's fixed in .NET 4.0.

Also see this article.

Answer 2

This is a bit of a random thought, but maybe not: reverse the order of the elements in your config so extensions come before behaviors.

-Oisin