how we can return a status code for the serialized JSON object using Newtonsoft.net - asp.net

Question

I have this Action method which act as an API end point inside our ASP.NET MVC-5, where it search for a username and return the username Phone number and Department from Active Directory (we are serializing the object using Newtonsoft.net):-
public ActionResult UsersInfo2()
{
DomainContext result = new DomainContext();
try
{
// create LDAP connection object
DirectoryEntry myLdapConnection = createDirectoryEntry();
string ADServerName = System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ADServerName"];
string ADusername = System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ADUserName"];
string ADpassword = System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ADPassword"];
using (var context = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://mydomain.com:389/DC=mydomain,DC=com", ADusername, ADpassword))
using (var search = new DirectorySearcher(context))
{
// create search object which operates on LDAP connection object
// and set search object to only find the user specified
// DirectorySearcher search = new DirectorySearcher(myLdapConnection);
// search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("telephoneNumber");
search.Filter = "(&(objectClass=user)(sAMAccountName=test.test))";
SearchResult r = search.FindOne();
ResultPropertyCollection fields = r.Properties;
foreach (String ldapField in fields.PropertyNames)
{
// cycle through objects in each field e.g. group membership
// (for many fields there will only be one object such as name)
string temp;
// foreach (Object myCollection in fields[ldapField])
// {
// temp = String.Format("{0,-20} : {1}",
// ldapField, myCollection.ToString());
if (ldapField.ToLower() == "telephonenumber")
{
foreach (Object myCollection in fields[ldapField])
{
result.Telephone = myCollection.ToString();
}
}
else if (ldapField.ToLower() == "department")
{
foreach (Object myCollection in fields[ldapField])
{
result.Department = myCollection.ToString();
}
}
// }
}
string output = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(result);
return Json(output,JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine("Exception caught:\n\n" + e.ToString());
}
return View(result);
}
now the return JSON will be as follow:-
"\"DisplayName\":null,\"Telephone\":\"123123\",\"Department\":\"IT\",\"Name\":null,\"SamAccountName\":null,\"DistinguishedName\":null,\"UserPrincipalName\":null}"
but in our case we need to return a status code beside the return json data. for example inccase there is an exception we need to return an error code,also if we are able to get the user's info we need to pass succes code 200, and so on.. so how we can achieve this?

Answer 1

you can try something like this
var statusCode=200;
string output = JsonConvert.SerializeObject( new { result = result, StatusCode = statusCode);
but nobody usually do this. When users call API they can check status code that HTTP Client returns, using code like this
var response = await client.GetAsync(api);
//or
var response = await client.PutAsJsonAsync(api, data);
var statusCode = response.StatusCode.ToString();
//or usually
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode) {...}
else {...}