How to: Step into WCF Services

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Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

In Visual Studio 2012, you can step into a WCF service. If the WCF service is in the same Visual Studio solution as the client, you can hit breakpoints inside the WCF Service.

For stepping to work, you must have debugging enabled in the app.config or Web.config file. For information about how to enable debugging and for limitations on stepping into WCF services, see Limitations on WCF Debugging.

To step into a WCF Service

  1. Create a Visual Studio solution that contains both the WCF client and WCF service projects.

  2. In Solution Explorer, right-click the WCF Client project and then click Set as Startup Project.

  3. Enable debugging in the app.config or web.config file. For more information, see Limitations on WCF Debugging.

  4. Set a breakpoint at the location in the client project where you want to start stepping. Typically, this will be just before the WCF service call.

  5. Run to the breakpoint, then begin stepping. The debugger will step into the service automatically.

See Also

Debugging WCF Services
Limitations on WCF Debugging
How to: Debug a Self-Hosted WCF Service