Relationship between SVC files and WCF projects?

Question

When creating a WCF project, the default member files are just ordinary csharp class files, rather than svc files. Are svc files required with a WCF project? When should they be

Answer 1

It is possible to create a WCF project and host it in IIS without using a .svc file.

Instead of implementing your DataContract in your svc code-behind, you implement it in a normal .cs file (i.e. no code behind.)

So, you would have a MyService.cs like this:

public class MyService: IMyService //IMyService defines the contract
{
    [WebGet(UriTemplate = "resource/{externalResourceId}")]
    public Resource GetResource(string externalResourceId)
    {
        int resourceId = 0;
        if (!Int32.TryParse(externalResourceId, out resourceId) || externalResourceId == 0) // No ID or 0 provided
        {
            WebOperationContext.Current.OutgoingResponse.StatusCode = HttpStatusCode.NotFound;
            return null;
        }
        var resource = GetResource(resourceId);
        return resource;
    }
}

Then comes the thing making this possible. Now you need to create a Global.asax with code-behind where you add an Application_Start event hook:

 public class Global : HttpApplication
{
    void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        RegisterRoutes();
    }

    private void RegisterRoutes()
    {
        // Edit the base address of MyService by replacing the "MyService" string below
        RouteTable.Routes.Add(new ServiceRoute("MyService", new WebServiceHostFactory(), typeof(MyService)));
    }
}

One nice thing about this is that you don't have to handle the .svc in your resource URLs. One not so nice thing is that you now have a Global.asax file.