Accessing ASP.NET Session, Request, Response (HttpContext / HttpApplication) in WCF

 

WCF services are designed to be transport independent. Even when they are hosted inside ASP.NET applications, the decoupling of the relationship to the HTTP-flavored features is required so that users are not confused. Also most of those ASP.NET features have counterparts in WCF. Nevertheless, WCF provides a mechanism to support smooth migration from ASMX to WCF by introducing two different hosting modes for WCF services:

• Mixed Transports Mode
• ASP.NET compatibility mode

This is controlled by the application-level configuration flag “aspNetCompatibilityEnabled”:

<system.serviceModel>

<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled=”true”/>

</system.serviceModel>

This flag is false by default.

Details from Wenlong Dong’s Blog : ASP.NET Compatibility Mode