WebInvoke with Complex Type parameter does not work for Json endpoint

Question

I want to create WCF Restful service that takes Complex Type as a parameter in Json format and return Json. I read a lots of article and examine many samples on the web. Some article suggest to add tag in Endpoint behavior and decorate Service method as below,

[WebInvoke(UriTemplate = "/PlaceOrder", 
        RequestFormat= WebMessageFormat.Json,   
        ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json, Method = "POST")]

In this case, WCF returns "Endpoints using 'UriTemplate' cannot be used with 'System.ServiceModel.Description.WebScriptEnablingBehavior'." error message.

Another suggested way(as in this article http://dotnetmentors.com/wcf/wcf-rest-service-to-get-or-post-json-data-and-retrieve-json-data-with-datacontract.aspx) is add "" tag to Endpoint behavior instead of . But in this case IIS returns ("The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request.") error message.

Can you please help me how to create Restful Service that takes complex type argument in json format and return json.

Answer 1

This works:

[ServiceContract]
public interface IService
{
    [WebInvoke(Method = "POST", UriTemplate = "/ModifyCustomer", RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
        ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]
    [OperationContract]
    Customer ModifyCustomer(Customer customer);
}

public class Service : IService
{
    public Customer ModifyCustomer(Customer customer)
    {
        customer.Age += 1;
        return customer;
    }
}

public class Customer
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Age { get; set; }
}

And self-hosting like:

var webServiceHost = new WebServiceHost(typeof(Service), 
    new Uri("http://localhost:12345"));
webServiceHost.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IService), new WebHttpBinding(),"");
webServiceHost.Open();

In Postman:

And in IIS Express with the following config:

<system.serviceModel>
    <services>
        <service name="RestServiceTest.Service" behaviorConfiguration="myServiceBehavior">
            <endpoint address="" binding="webHttpBinding" contract="RestServiceTest.IService" behaviorConfiguration="myEndpointBehavior">
            </endpoint>
        </service>
    </services>
    <behaviors>
        <serviceBehaviors>
            <behavior name="myServiceBehavior">
                <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
            </behavior>
        </serviceBehaviors>
        <endpointBehaviors>
            <behavior name="myEndpointBehavior">
                <webHttp/>
            </behavior>
        </endpointBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>

Result from postman: