I want to convert our existing WCF REST web services to ASP.NET Web APIso I started to look into it.
Getting one of my function (i.e. login) up and running in ASP.NET Web API was quite straight forward but there is one thing I'm confused about and I hope one of you can clarify this for me.
In our WCF REST web service, our login (POST) function was called as follows:
http://localhost/mywebsite/mywebservice.svc/Authentication/Login
We'd pass a LoginRequest to it and we'd get a LoginResponse back.
Now in ASP.NET Web API, I've our Login (POST) function is being called as follows:
http://localhost/api/authentication and I'm passing the same LoginRequest and I get the same LoginResponse.
My confusion is, how does ASP.NET Web API know to use the Login function which is defined in the AuthenticationController?
I assume it has something to do with the parameter type being passed but what if I have another function that has the same parameter type, how would it differentiate between the 2?
For example, what if I had a LocalLogin and CloudLogin (not the case btw) and both require the LoginRequest as an input parameter and both return the LoginResponse, how would it know which one to call since it's not part of the URI?
Thanks.
Related
I am using ASP.NET MVC 4 WEB API to create a Restful API service. This is my first go at it, so if you feel I am taking a wrong approach please feel free to correct.
I want to create a rest API (only & not a website, the consumer of the api can decide where they want to consume it), in the past I have used Restful WCF service to achieve this.
I have created a new ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Application and chose the WebAPI project template. I have added a controller class 'CatalogueController.cs' the purpose is on Get() operation I want to return the Catalogue list. The CatalogueDo contains only one property 'Service' of type string.
[System.Web.Http.HttpGet()]
public HttpResponseMessage Get()
{
return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, Catalogue);
}
When I run the application the browser loads with the URL http://localhost:5502/ resource not found, if I add the controller name http://localhost:5502/Catalogue/ the browser pops open a notepad with,
[{"Service":"Exchange"},{"Service":"Holidays"}]
The data is correct but
the browser keeps showing resource not found and after my request has been served the URL changes to http://localhost:5502/.
Question,
Am I doing something wrong? Should the response that pops up in the
notepad not be shown as xml in the browser it self?
Why does the controller name get removed from the URL once the request has been served?
Is it at all possible to invoke this REST service from Excel or Power Pivot?
I have a Web API project as part of my solution (also containing an MVC4 project) and within the Api project I am trying to post a form to the Values controller Post method (from a view also within the Api project).
Using Html.BeginForm() or Html.BeginForm("Post", "Values") posts to /Values/Post but I need it to go to /api/Values/Post
Any idea which overload or settings I need to post to the correct location?
I can hit all the action methods fine from fiddler (e.g. localhost/api/values).
You would need to use BeginRouteForm as link generation to Web API routes always depends on the route name. Also make sure to supply the route value called httproute as below.
#using (Html.BeginRouteForm("DefaultApi", new { controller="Values", httproute="true" }))
The API controller uses a different route to the default. It's supposed to be consumed from JS (AJAX) rather than a real form post so there's no obvious support for it in HtmlHelpers. Try:
Html.BeginForm("values", "api")
This would trick it into thinking "values" is the action and "api" is the controller. "Post" is inferred from the http method.
I am trying to extract an id number from a URL using a web service so that it can be used as a parameter for a where clause in a select statement that produces data from a database based on the id number of a record. That data will then be passed back to the page to populate an element in a jQuery modal popup widow.
Everything works fine with a static id number (ex: string postid = "120"), but I don't know how to get the id number from the URL. I'm using Routing in .Net 4 and the method for accessing Routing in pages does not work in a web service. In pages I just do stuff like var id = RouteData.Values["id"]; and that gets the id, but when i did it in a web service I got an error:
CS0120: An object reference is required for the non-static field,
method, or property 'System.Web.Routing.RouteData.Values.get'
Summary:
I have web service accessed form a details page where I want to get RouteData for the page making the request. I want to do this just as easily as I can on a page using RouteData.Values which is just as easy as the now the obsolete Request.Querystring.
Now I am more confused because although I could easily add a new route for the web service I don't know I would call that using jQuery Ajax because of the webservice.asmx/webmethod syntax.
Right now I have URL: "../webservices/googlemaps.asmx/GetGoogleMap" in my jQuery Ajax, but that is not a real URL. It only exists in jQuery somewhere and the way to call the service using just JavaScript is no a real URL either, its webservice.webmethod() which in this case would be googlemaps.GetGoogleMap().
I will try registering a route for webservices/googlemaps.asmx/GetGoogleMap/postid, but I doubt it will work because GetGoogleMap is not a directory or a querystring.
Get current http request and use RequestContext property to get request context - it has current routing data. For example,
var id = HttpContext.Current.Request.RequestContext.RouteData.Values["id"];
In case of WCF based web service, make sure that service is participating in ASP.NET pipeline (see ASP.NET Compatibility)
EDIT: Sorry for misleading answer - the above will not work unless web service url is registered in routing engine. However, it may not solve your issue of retrieving the id - what kind of service implementation are you using? Are you making a GET request or POST request? Typically, web service handler (asmx) or WCF pipeline should convert GET/POST parameters to method parameters. Post your web service code and how you invoke it.
I got .asmx a web service on my app. I need to call a method from an other app to get statistics from my app. I need it to return XML. the call to the webmethod is done with javascript soap.
EDIT
I got the web service working. I can execute code and return a string but it stops there. When I try to pass parameters into the method it wont work and when I try to return a string[] or any other type it wont work either. any ideas? Is there something I need to do passing in parameters?
I think you could do two things.
One: enable [ScriptService] attribute on web method. This allows you to call the webservice
with javascript.
Example
Two: enable http-post/http-get webservice calls
How to enable
I am new to web services. The last time I dealt with SOAP was when I created a bunch of wrapper classes that sent requests and received responses back per some response objects/classes I had created. So I had an object to send certain API requests and likewise a set of objects to hold the response back as an object so I could utilize that 3rd party API.
Then someone came to me and said why not just use the wsdl and a web service. Ok, so today I went and created a "Service Reference". I see that this is what's called a "Proxy Class". You just instantiate an instance of this and then walla you have access to all the methods from the wsdl.
But this leaves me with auth questions. Back when I created my own classes manually, I had a class which exposed properties that I would set then access for things like signature, username, password that got sent along with the Http request that were required by whatever 3rd party API I was using to make API calls.
But then with using a Service Reference, how then would I pass this information just like I had done in my custom classes? For instance I'm going to be working with the PayPal API. It requires you to send a signature and a few other pieces of information like username and password.
// Determins if API call needs to use a session based URI
string requestURI = UseAuthURI == true ? _requestURIAuthBased + aSessionID : _requestURI;
byte[] data = XmlUtil.DocumentToBytes(doc);
// Create the atual Request instance
HttpWebRequest request = CreateWebRequest(requestURI, data.Length);
So how do I pass username, password, signature, etc. when using web service references for each method call? Is it as simple as specifying it as a param to the method or do you use the .Credentials and .URL methods of your proxy class object? It seems to me Credentials means windows credentials but I could be wrong. Is it limited to that or can you use that to specify those required header values that PayPal expects with each method call/API request?
Using Web Service or Web Service Reference