WCF Service Reference generates its own contract interface, won't reuse mine

Question

My first question so hope it is suitable:

Shared interface assembly - I have a \'shared\' assembly which has an interface, let\'s call it IDocRepository

Answer 1

Visual Studio does not support reusing you existing interface when generating the proxy classes for you. Reuse types will not reuse the contract interface as Quartermeister pointed out.

We have solved it with inheritance. Quite similar to the partial class idea above suggested by Jester Software.

This is how we solved it:

In the project of your client just create a service reference as you would have done. Then add a class that serves as the replacement for the client:

internal class MyServiceProxy : MyServiceClient, MyLogicNamespace.IMyService
{}

This class inherits from the generated MyServiceClient but states that that client does implement the original interface.

(I suggest you put them in a folder named "ServiceProxies")

If the MyServiceClient class contains any methods that do not match with the original interface then you can add them in that proxy and do the conversion in code.

After this, just use the MyServiceProxy where you would have used MyServiceClient.