How to: Create a Basic Atom Feed

Article
08/07/2009

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) allows you to create a service that exposes a syndication feed. This topic discusses how to create a syndication service that exposes an Atom syndication feed.

To create a basic syndication service

Define a service contract using an interface marked with the WebGetAttribute attribute. Each operation that is exposed as a syndication feed should return a Atom10FeedFormatter object.

[ServiceContract]
public interface IBlog
{
    [OperationContract]
    [WebGet]
    Atom10FeedFormatter GetBlog();
}

Note:
All service operations that apply the WebGetAttribute are mapped to HTTP GET requests. To map your operation to a different HTTP method, use the WebInvokeAttribute instead. For more information, see How to: Create a Basic WCF REST Service.

Implement the service contract.

public class BlogService : IBlog
{
    public Atom10FeedFormatter GetBlog()
    {
        SyndicationFeed feed = new SyndicationFeed("My Blog Feed", "This is a test feed", new Uri("http://SomeURI"), "FeedOneID", new DateTimeOffset(DateTime.Now));
        feed.Authors.Add(new SyndicationPerson("someone@microsoft.com"));
        feed.Categories.Add(new SyndicationCategory("How To Sample Code"));
        feed.Description = new TextSyndicationContent("This is a sample that illistrates how to expose a feed using ATOM with WCF");

        SyndicationItem item1 = new SyndicationItem(
            "Item One",
            "This is the content for item one",
            new Uri("https://localhost/Content/One"),
            "ItemOneID",
            DateTime.Now);

        SyndicationItem item2 = new SyndicationItem(
            "Item Two",
            "This is the content for item two",
            new Uri("https://localhost/Content/Two"),
            "ItemTwoID",
            DateTime.Now);

        SyndicationItem item3 = new SyndicationItem(
            "Item Three",
            "This is the content for item three",
            new Uri("https://localhost/Content/three"),
            "ItemThreeID",
            DateTime.Now);
        List<SyndicationItem> items = new List<SyndicationItem>();

        items.Add(item1);
        items.Add(item2);
        items.Add(item3);

        feed.Items = items;
        return new Atom10FeedFormatter(feed);
    }
}

Create a SyndicationFeed object and add an author, category, and description.

SyndicationFeed feed = new SyndicationFeed("My Blog Feed", "This is a test feed", new Uri("http://SomeURI"), "FeedOneID", new DateTimeOffset(DateTime.Now));
feed.Authors.Add(new SyndicationPerson("someone@microsoft.com"));
feed.Categories.Add(new SyndicationCategory("How To Sample Code"));
feed.Description = new TextSyndicationContent("This is a sample that illistrates how to expose a feed using ATOM with WCF");

Create several SyndicationItem objects.

SyndicationItem item1 = new SyndicationItem(
    "Item One",
    "This is the content for item one",
    new Uri("https://localhost/Content/One"),
    "ItemOneID",
    DateTime.Now);

SyndicationItem item2 = new SyndicationItem(
    "Item Two",
    "This is the content for item two",
    new Uri("https://localhost/Content/Two"),
    "ItemTwoID",
    DateTime.Now);

SyndicationItem item3 = new SyndicationItem(
    "Item Three",
    "This is the content for item three",
    new Uri("https://localhost/Content/three"),
    "ItemThreeID",
    DateTime.Now);

Add the SyndicationItem objects to the feed.

List<SyndicationItem> items = new List<SyndicationItem>();

items.Add(item1);
items.Add(item2);
items.Add(item3);

feed.Items = items;

Return the feed.
```
return new Atom10FeedFormatter(feed);
```

To host the service

Create a WebServiceHost object.

Uri baseAddress = new Uri("https://localhost:8000/BlogService/");
WebServiceHost svcHost = new WebServiceHost(typeof(BlogService), baseAddress);

Open the service host, load the feed from the service, display the feed, and wait for the user to press ENTER.

svcHost.Open();
Console.WriteLine("Service is running");

XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create("https://localhost:8000/BlogService/GetBlog");
SyndicationFeed feed = SyndicationFeed.Load(reader);
Console.WriteLine(feed.Title.Text);
Console.WriteLine("Items:");
foreach (SyndicationItem item in feed.Items)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Title: {0}", item.Title.Text);
    Console.WriteLine("Content: {0}", ((TextSyndicationContent)item.Content).Text);
}
Console.WriteLine("Press <ENTER> to quit...");
Console.ReadLine();
svcHost.Close();

To call GetBlog() with an HTTP GET

Open Internet Explorer, type the following URL, and press ENTER: https://localhost:8000/BlogService/GetBlog

The URL contains the base address of the service (https://localhost:8000/BlogService), the relative address of the endpoint, and the service operation to call.

To call GetBlog() from code

Create a XmlReader with the base address and the method you are calling.

XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create("https://localhost:8000/BlogService/GetBlog");

Call the static Load method, passing in the XmlReader you just created.
```
SyndicationFeed feed = SyndicationFeed.Load(reader);
```
This invokes the service operation and populates a new SyndicationFeed with the formatter returned from the service operation.

Access the feed object.

Console.WriteLine(feed.Title.Text);
Console.WriteLine("Items:");
foreach (SyndicationItem item in feed.Items)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Title: {0}", item.Title.Text);
    Console.WriteLine("Summary: {0}", ((TextSyndicationContent)item.Summary).Text);
}

Example

The following is the full code listing for this example.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.Xml;
using System.ServiceModel.Description;
using System.ServiceModel.Syndication;
using System.ServiceModel.Channels;
using System.ServiceModel.Web;

namespace Service
{
    [ServiceContract]
    public interface IBlog
    {
        [OperationContract]
        [WebGet]
        Atom10FeedFormatter GetBlog();
    }

    public class BlogService : IBlog
    {
        public Atom10FeedFormatter GetBlog()
        {
            SyndicationFeed feed = new SyndicationFeed("My Blog Feed", "This is a test feed", new Uri("http://SomeURI"), "FeedOneID", new DateTimeOffset(DateTime.Now));
            feed.Authors.Add(new SyndicationPerson("someone@microsoft.com"));
            feed.Categories.Add(new SyndicationCategory("How To Sample Code"));
            feed.Description = new TextSyndicationContent("This is a sample that illistrates how to expose a feed using ATOM with WCF");

            SyndicationItem item1 = new SyndicationItem(
                "Item One",
                "This is the content for item one",
                new Uri("https://localhost/Content/One"),
                "ItemOneID",
                DateTime.Now);

            SyndicationItem item2 = new SyndicationItem(
                "Item Two",
                "This is the content for item two",
                new Uri("https://localhost/Content/Two"),
                "ItemTwoID",
                DateTime.Now);

            SyndicationItem item3 = new SyndicationItem(
                "Item Three",
                "This is the content for item three",
                new Uri("https://localhost/Content/three"),
                "ItemThreeID",
                DateTime.Now);
            List<SyndicationItem> items = new List<SyndicationItem>();

            items.Add(item1);
            items.Add(item2);
            items.Add(item3);

            feed.Items = items;
            return new Atom10FeedFormatter(feed);
        }
    }

    public class Host
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Uri baseAddress = new Uri("https://localhost:8000/BlogService/");
            WebServiceHost svcHost = new WebServiceHost(typeof(BlogService), baseAddress);
            try
            {
                svcHost.Open();
                Console.WriteLine("Service is running");

                XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create("https://localhost:8000/BlogService/GetBlog");
                SyndicationFeed feed = SyndicationFeed.Load(reader);
                Console.WriteLine(feed.Title.Text);
                Console.WriteLine("Items:");
                foreach (SyndicationItem item in feed.Items)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Title: {0}", item.Title.Text);
                    Console.WriteLine("Content: {0}", ((TextSyndicationContent)item.Content).Text);
                }
                Console.WriteLine("Press <ENTER> to quit...");
                Console.ReadLine();
                svcHost.Close();
            }
            catch (CommunicationException ce)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("An exception occurred: {0}", ce.Message);
                svcHost.Abort();
            }
        }
    }
}

Compiling the Code

When compiling the preceding code, reference System.ServiceModel.dll and System.ServiceModel.Web.dll.

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