Configuring WCF Data Services Using Lambda Expressions

One of the things that I avoid when I’m writing code is the use of "magic strings".

Hardcoded strings are a code smell and should be rarely used. When using the WCF DataServiceConfiguration object, you’ll have to pass the entity set’s string name to the configuration methods, which as I wrote, I would like to avoid. This is why in today’s post, I’m going to extend the DataServiceConfiguration object to support lambda expressions instead of string parameters.

Data Service Configuration Extensions

I’ve created a simple static class that includes two new extension methods: SetEntitySetAccessRule<DataSource> and SetEntitySetPageSize<DataSource>. Both of the methods extend the DataServiceConfiguration object and add the functionality of receiving a lambda expression that will hold the entity set name. Here is the class implementation:

public static class DataServiceConfigurationExtensions
{
  public static void SetEntitySetAccessRule<DataSource>(
    this DataServiceConfiguration config,
    Expression<Func<DataSource, object>> expression,
    EntitySetRights rights)
    where DataSource : class
  {      
    string entitySetName = GetEntitySetName(expression);
    config.SetEntitySetAccessRule(entitySetName, rights);
  }
 
  public static void SetEntitySetPageSize<DataSource>(
    this DataServiceConfiguration config,
    Expression<Func<DataSource, object>> expression,
    int pageSize)
    where DataSource : class
  {
    string entitySetName = GetEntitySetName(expression);
    config.SetEntitySetPageSize(entitySetName, pageSize);
  }
 
  private static string GetEntitySetName<DataSource>(
          Expression<Func<DataSource, object>> expression)
  {
    MemberExpression memberExpression = expression.Body as MemberExpression;
    if (memberExpression == null)
    {
      throw new ArgumentException("Must be a member expression");
    }
    return memberExpression.Member.Name;
  }
}

And here is how you’ll use this implementation while configuring your data service:

public class SchoolDataService : DataService<SchoolEntities>
{     
  public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config)
  {
    config.SetEntitySetAccessRule<SchoolEntities>(c => c.Courses, EntitySetRights.All);
    config.SetEntitySetPageSize<SchoolEntities>(c => c.Courses, 10);  
  
    config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V2;
  }
}

Now, if a name of an entity set will change, you’ll get a compilation error instead of a runtime error. Also, this way is less error prone and is more clean. Since the InitializeService method is being called only once, the impact on performance is negligible.

Summary

Using "magic strings" is a bad habit. In this post, I showed a simple solution for using lambda extensions instead of strings while configuring a WCF Data Service.