Working with the WCF Core Service
The WCF Core Service expects requests in XML that is compliant with its language-neutral WSDL (Web Service Definition Language).
Options for clients
Use the built-in .NET client to interact with the WCF Core Service, or create your own proxy client. You can also send raw XML to the web service. To interact with the API, you can do one of the following:
- Use the built-in .NET client
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Use this client for all .NET languages.
During installation, you installed the built-in client for .NET. The client is located in the bin\client\CoreService\ subfolder of
%TRIDION_HOME%and is called Tridion.ContentManager.CoreService.Client.dll. - Create a Java client
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To generate a proxy for Java, use XmlBeans data binding for best forward compatibilty.
- Use a client in another programming language
-
Y
ou can use a tool that generates a proxy in the programming language of your choice.
API mapping
The WCF Core Service is documented in API reference documentation as a server-side C#.NET API exposed through a WSDL in your proxy client. But strong typing and namespaces cause differences between the documented API and the API you use.
End point configuration
Configure the default IIS-hosted end points in your web.config file. Configure the net.tcp end points in your TcmServiceHost.exe.config file. You can also create custom endpoints and bindings. An endpoint has a URL and binding properties that specify how the data will be transferred.
Content Manager item identifiers
The WCF Core Service supports the following ways of identifying an item in the Content Manager:
- Content Manager URIs (TCM URIs)
- WebDAV URLs (Uniform Resource Locators)
- External Content Library (ECL) URIs (but only if you explicitly tell the API to allow this)
Content Manager URI is an ID type that the Content Manager uses for each identifiable Content Manager object. The Id property of an identifiable object in the Core Service (that is, of any item that is derived from the IdentifiableObjectData class) is always a Content Manager URI (a TcmUri object on server-side .NET, a string type on the client).