How to POST XML using Fiddler to ASP.NET WebAPI - asp.net

Question

Given the following ASP.NET WebAPI, I am trying to send a test POST using Fiddler, but can't get it to work. Whatever I send, I always just see the No data sent to service message.
Imports System.Web.Http
Imports System.Net.Http
Imports System.Net
Namespace HelloWebApiDemo
Public Class MyApiController
Inherits ApiController
Public Function [Get]() As HttpResponseMessage
Return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, "Hello")
End Function
Public Class MyXmlData
Public Property UserName As String
Public Property Password As String
Public Property SomeData As String
End Class
Public Function Post(<FromBody> x As MyXmlData) As HttpResponseMessage
If x Is Nothing Then
Return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError, "No data sent to service")
End If
Dim u As String = String.Empty
Dim p As String = String.Empty
Dim d As String = String.Empty
If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(x.UserName) Then
u = x.UserName
End If
If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(x.Password) Then
p = x.Password
End If
If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(x.SomeData) Then
d = x.SomeData
End If
Return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, String.Format("You posted {0}, {1} with a string that is {2} characters in length", u, p, d.Length.ToString))
End Function
End Class
End Namespace
In Fiddler, my POST looks like this:
Can anyone please advise on what I'm doing wrong? I used Content-Type: text/xml hoping that ASP.NET would be able to decipher it correctly.
Update
New screen grab following input:

Answer 1

Keep the Content-Type: text/xml request header and change the XML to like this.
<MyApiController.MyXmlData
xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/HelloWebApiDemo.HelloWebApiDemo">
<Password>somepassword</Password>
<SomeData>somedata</SomeData>
<UserName>bob</UserName>
</MyApiController.MyXmlData>

Answer 2

Final XML snippet that was successfully deserialized:
<MyApiController.MyXmlData
xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/_WebApplication1.HelloWebApiDemo">
<Password>Password</Password>
<SomeData>Data here</SomeData>
<UserName>Some Username</UserName>
</MyApiController.MyXmlData>
_WebApplication1 is the name of the solution. That must've been what was missing.

Answer 3

For those who have the ability to do this when faced with the same issue, another option is to use JSON. I am a huge fan of XML, but unfortunately, it seems things are far more stacked against XML's usage in scenarios like this, because in this case, the standard WebApi parser requires all that hideous extra stuff, including intimate knowledge of backend namespaces and types, as well as a full XML spec namespace (* see rant below).
{
"SomeData": "R2D2",
"UserName": "Johny",
"Password": "password",
"Num": 1013,
"IsCool": true
}
*( Rant, please ignore if you want to: Why require this, oh ye good gentleman who made WepApi and other such frameworks? why not allow the XML to be liberated, freely receivable without all this 'ugly'? If included, it could still specify something useful, if one needs to, but why must the rest of us include this ugliness? It seems things have been (arbitrarily, though perhaps more for historical baggage reasons, sorry you poor XML creature, you're stuck with yesterday's baggage though it need not be) stacked against XML's usage, including that, even with all this, a standard parser likely would not allow you to post the XML with the values as XML attributes. )

Answer 4

You can mark your entity class with DataContract attribute setting namespace to an empty string:
<DataContract(Namespace := "")>
Public Class MyXmlData
End Class
After that xmlns parameters will not be necessary.