This week I found myself wanting to look at the raw XML data sent between a client and a service. Of course the WCF tool SvcTraceViewer generally makes more sense to use for tracing, but sometimes it's necessary to look at the actual data on the wire. In such case a tcp trace tool can be used and placed in-between the caller and the service. In the end this was really easy to setup but in order to save someone else the hour or so to figure it out here's how it works:

For tracing I used Simon Fell's tcpTrace available at http://www.pocketsoap.com/tcptrace/.

First start tcpTrace. It needs to sit in the middle of the call so have it listen to the port the server exposes and forward to different port. Then configure the server to listen to the port tcpTrace forwards to using the listenUri configuration setting. The client doesn't have to be changed since all it does is call tcpTrace, which then forwards to the service. The config used looks like this: 

Server config:

<service name="Service.Calculator">
   <endpoint address="http://localhost:8001/CalculatorService"
                 listenUri="http://localhost:8002/CalculateService"
                 binding="basicHttpBinding"
                 contract="Service.ICalculator"         
   />
</service>

Client config:

   />
</client>

Note to self: Just to save the extra minutes to find the darn download - the VSTS Team Explorer can be downloaded here.

The new-and-improved version has been published. Promised this time is a number of buggfixes, especially VS2003 integration deserves this...

This version (1.2) includes (from the download page):

• Enable handling branched solutions in Visual Studio 2003.
• Fixed issues to enable provider to support Toad for SQL Server 2.0.
• Enhanced the "Choose Folder in Team Foundation Server" dialog.
• Fixed bug which prevented Properties Dialog from displaying local path.
• Work Items Query list in the Checkin Dialog is loaded and saved on the disk.
• "Get" operation performance improvements.
• Defect fixes

The Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider v.1.2 can be downloaded here.

Got this question yesterday; can the ASP.NET session object be used to store state in a web service? The answer is yes, but the web service method must be marked with EnableSession = true.

Below is a small code snippet that shows how it's done:

[WebMethod(EnableSession = true)]
public string HelloWorld()
{   
   // Check if item in cache, else add it.
   if (HttpContext.Current.Session["stateItem"] == null)
   {
      HttpContext.Current.Session["stateItem"] = "some-item-to-store";
   }

   return (string)HttpContext.Current.Session["stateItem"];
}

Simple, but yet easy to forget...

Last week I was interviewed by the Swedish Microsoft Partner program about my thoughts regarding the MCP program, why we focus on certification and what the value of it is. The article can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/sverige/partner/callista_mcp.aspx (in Swedish).

This year we attended the European TechEd in Barcelona, Spain. Tons of fun stuff and many Swedish colleagues.

Our impressions from TechEd can be viewed on the Swedish Microsoft MSDN web, found at http://www.microsoft.com/sverige/msdn/teched_2006.aspx (in Swedish).