在WCF REST服务中禁用XML示例？

Question

I have a REST service that has several clients consuming it that is set up to, as far as I can tell, only accept JSON when performing a POST/PUT (and only return JSON on all calls). The issue is that on the service /help page, it shows examples of JSON and XML both. Is there a way to remove all the extra XML garbage so as not to confuse users (since, again, the service only accepts JSON) and only display JSON examples on the /help page? Here's my Web.config:

<standardEndpoints>
  <webHttpEndpoint>
    <standardEndpoint name="" helpEnabled="true" automaticFormatSelectionEnabled="false" defaultOutgoingResponseFormat="Json" />
  </webHttpEndpoint>
</standardEndpoints>

And each of my GetGets/WebInvokes are defined w/ JSON as the formats, for example:

[WebInvoke(UriTemplate = "/sample", BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare, Method = "POST", RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]

So, is there anything else I can do to let the service know that it's JSON only and remove the auto-gen XML junk cluttering up my /help pages?

Answer 1

Take your Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Http.HttpConfiguration config and remove its XmlFormatter (it has a JSON formatter and an XML formatter by default).

var config = new Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Http.HttpConfiguration();
config.Formatters.Remove(config.Formatters.XmlFormatter);

Now you can create an HttpServiceHostFactory with this configuration, and use that to register routes.

//RouteTable is of type System.Web.Routing.RouteCollection
RouteTable.Add(new WebApiRoute(
    "MyService",
    new HttpServiceHostFactory { Configuration = config },
    typeof(MyService)));

I don't have any credible source for you other than "it works for me."

Answer 2

You can disable the help page by adding this to your web.config:

<webServices>
 <protocols>
   <remove name="Documentation" />
 </protocols>
</webServices>

source

Answer 3

I was very unhappy with how MS implemented this feature. They don't provide any control on the output and all implementing details are private. Interfaces, classes, etc...

I ended up building my own sample generator for other reasons but after reading all the code related to this I can tell you for sure you can't control the behavior.

Optionally, and if you feel strongly about this, you can add an IOperationBehavior and strip the xml example output. The mark up is well formatted and you should be able to easily parse and find the sections to remove from the final mark up.

If you feel like you'd like to pursue this further let me know and I can give you more details.