ASP.Net Web API 404 Error on 2nd API - asp.net

Question

So I already have 1 Web API set up and working great, but now that I am trying to set up my own admin panel ( which I did ), I need to use the DeleteUser() function from the Web API named AdminApi but I can't seem to get it working. I keep getting 404 error while giving the path that the API should be at.
Web Api Config:
public static class WebApiConfig
{
public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
// Web API configuration and services
// Web API routes
config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes();
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
}
}
Global :
protected void Application_Start()
{
AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();
GlobalConfiguration.Configure(WebApiConfig.Register);
FilterConfig.RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);
RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
BundleConfig.RegisterBundles(BundleTable.Bundles);
//Create the custom role and user
RoleActions roleActions = new RoleActions();
roleActions.AddUserAndRole();
}
AdminApi :
[Authorize(Roles = "admin")]
public class AdminApiController : ApiController
{
public string test()
{
return "test";
}
[HttpPost]
public string DeleteUser(string id)
{
ApplicationDbContext db = new ApplicationDbContext();
var user = db.Users.Find(id);
if (user != null)
{
string email = user.Email;
db.Users.Remove(user);
return "Succesfully deleted user : " + email;
}
else
return "Failed to delete user.";
}
}
Ajax :
function deleteUser (id)
{
$.ajax({
url: '../api/AdminApi/DeleteUser',
type: 'POST',
contentType: "application/json",
dataType: 'json',
data: JSON.stringify(id),
success: function (data) {
alert(data);
},
error: function (x, y, z) {
alert(x + '\n' + y + '\n' + z);
}
});
}
The ajax function is called on the page /Admin/AdminPage
so to get to the web api -> ../api/AdminApi
and the function to delete users is DeleteUser
-> ../api/AdminApi/DeleterUser
I don't get why I get a 404 error. I can understand if my function DeleteUser is not working since I haven't tested it, but I can't test it if I can't get in the function.

Answer 1

The issue is related to how you use the attribute:
[Route("DeleteUser")]
If you use the Attribute Route. at Method level what it does is to define new route or more routes therefore the way you should use it is like [Route('Url/path1/route1')]:
As an example of how it works:
//GET api/customer/GetMetaData
[Route('/api/customer/GetMetaData')]
public string Get2(){
//your code goes here
}
If you will be declaring several Routes in your class then you can use RoutePrefix attribute like [RoutePrefix('url')] at class level. This will set a new base URL for all methods your in Controller class.
For example:
[RoutePrefix("api2/some")]
public class SomeController : ApiController
{
// GET api2/some
[Route("")]
public IEnumerable<Some> Get() { ... }
// POST api2/some/DeleteUser/5
[HttpPost]
[Route("DeleteUser/{id:int}")]
public Some DeleteUser(int id) { ... }
}
Update
By default Web API looks at the routing URL first, what is in your [Route] I mean and it tries to match it against your post. However if your method has a complex object as parameter WebApi can't get the values from the request URI because the parameter is a complex type Web API uses a media-type formatter to read the value from the request body.
Since your string id is not a complex object and it is part of your Route WebApi expects it as part of your URL not the body. Try this instead:
[HttpPost]
public string DeleteUser([FromBody]string anotherName)