I've created both an ASP.NET MVC project which includes the Web API and I created an empty project where only Web API was selected and I'm trying to understand why they are behaving differently.
Both of them from what I can tell have the routing definition defined as follows:
config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes();
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
But I'd like to understand why the functions that are defined in the controller are behaving differently.
In my ASP.NET MVC Solution, I can create multiple functions under the one controller:
public IEnumerable<Product> GetAllProducts()
{
return products;
}
public IHttpActionResult GetProduct(int id)
{
var product = products.FirstOrDefault((p) => p.Id == id);
if (product == null)
{
return NotFound();
}
return Ok(product);
}
I don't have to add any attributes, well at least for gets and I can call individual function as:
http://localhost/api/test/GetProduct/1
http://localhost/api/test/GetProducts
In the Web API only solution, I had to define it as:
public IHttpActionResult HelloWorld()
{
return Ok("Hello World");
}
but the above will not work unless I add the [HttpGet] attribute to my HelloWorld function.
Also I don't seem to be able to define multiple functions within the one controller as it is done the in ASP.NET MVC Solution. Defining the same function as above just does not work or even if I define the functions below
[HttpGet]
public IHttpActionResult HelloWorld()
{
return Ok("Hello World");
}
[HttpGet]
public IHttpActionResult GetTime()
{
return Ok(DateTime.Now.ToString());
}
I get the following error:
<Error>
<Message>An error has occurred.</Message>
<ExceptionMessage>
Multiple actions were found that match the request: HelloWorld on type
MyProject.Controllers.TestController GetTime on type
MyProject.Controllers.TestController
</ExceptionMessage>
<ExceptionType>System.InvalidOperationException</ExceptionType>
<StackTrace>
at
System.Web.Http.Controllers.ApiControllerActionSelector.
ActionSelectorCacheItem.SelectAction(HttpControllerContext
controllerContext) at System.Web.Http.ApiController.
ExecuteAsync(HttpControllerContext controllerContext, CancellationToken
cancellationToken) at System.Web.Http.Dispatcher.
HttpControllerDispatcher.<SendAsync>d__15.MoveNext()
</StackTrace>
When I define a single function, it works but contrarily to a Web API defined in my ASP.NET MVC solution, when I call the below
http://localhost/api/test/HelloWorld
It doesn't seem to care what the function name is called as it will work if I call any of the following:
http://localhost/api/test
http://localhost/api/test/GoodBye
and will only fail if I provide an invalid controller name i.e.
http://localhost/api/mytest
Can you explain the difference between the 2 and ideally what do I have to do to get a stand-alone Web API to behave the same way as it does when defined in Asp.net MVC
Thanks.
UPDATE-1
Below are 2 good examples where the behavior is clearly different but I can't see why as both are called "Web API with ASP.NET MVC".
Creating Simple Service with ASP.NET MVC Web API to be accessed by Windows Store and Windows Phone Application
Getting Started with ASP.NET Web API 2 (C#)
Edit:
I'm sry at first I misunderstood your enquiry and therefore gave you the wrong answer to your question.
In Web Api you can't define two functions that serve the exact same path. But you can overload them like you would with Functions.
public IEnumerable<Product> GetAllProducts() {}
public IHttpActionResult GetProduct(int id) {}
These two function differ in so far that they serve different paths:
localhost/api/products/
localhost/api/products/{id}/
The following functions on the other hand both serve localhost/api/test/
[HttpGet]
public IHttpActionResult HelloWorld()
{
return Ok("Hello World");
}
[HttpGet]
public IHttpActionResult GetTime()
{
return Ok(DateTime.Now.ToString());
}
Your second concern has been the naming and mostly why you can't define HelloWorld() without [HttpGet]. That is because Web Api automatically maps functions that have a keyword such as Get or Delete as part of their name to the corresponding Http Function.
Adding the Http-Attribute is only needed if the function name does not conform to these naming conventions or shall serve multiple Http-Methods. It's described here
I hope your questions are now answered.
Orig:
The Default Routing and subsequent decision on what Function is to be executed is different between MVC and Web API
Default Web Api:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
Default Mvc:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultMvc",
routeTemplate: "/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
For Web Api the Routing is dependant on the controller name and further which Http-Method has been selected as well as the controller actually having a function the has been tagged with this method. Hence the and further Tags
Mvc on the other hand routes via the controller name and the action name to the desired functionality.
Web Api 2 adds further possibilies in letting you define AttributeRoutes. You may want to look further on this topic here and here
I have a Web Api project which needs to return an MVC styled View. I have made my MVC Controller as such
public class MVCController: Controller
{
[HttpGet]
[Route("api/mvc/test")]
public ActionResult test()
{
return View();
}
}
However, When i try to access this controller from the web, i cant seem to reach the controller. I get the following error:
{"Message":"No HTTP resource was found that matches the request URI 'http://localhost/foo/api/mvc/test'.","MessageDetail":"No type was found that matches the controller named 'mvc'."}
After doing searches on google, people seem to be telling me to change routing properties in the webapiconfig to
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
But i still seem to be having no luck. IF HOWEVER i change my controller to an webapi controller as such
public class MVCController: ApiController
{
[HttpGet]
[Route("api/mvc/test")]
public IHttpActionResult test()
{
return Ok();
}
}
I can reach the controller.. If someone could give me some insight to as what is going on, it would be much appreciated.
UPDATE
After reading the response below, I have updated my controller to look like this:
public class MVCController: Controller
{
[HttpGet]
public ActionResult test()
{
return View();
}
}
However, localhost/MVCController/test still seems to give me a 404 error and the Controller is not being hit. Sorry for my newbieness by the way.
I bet you have a file called WebApiConfig.cs which has this code.
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}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
}
}
This is where the routing pattern is defined for the web api controllers. So any request coming with api/something will be considered as a request for web api endpoint because you must have invoked the WebApiConfig.Register call before registering the routes for mvc controllers. The Order of registering routes really matters.
protected void Application_Start()
{
GlobalConfiguration.Configure(WebApiConfig.Register); // first one
RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes); //second one
}
Since the order of registration matters, when a request comes with api/something, it will be matched against the route registration for web apis and framework will try to look for matching web api controller.s
If you swap the order of calling the route registration method, your request will work. but that might affect other parts when you try to access web api controllers.
BTW, Are you sure you want to have api/ in the route pattern for your MVC controller ? Unless you really want some different url patten than the normal convention(*controllername/action*), just remove the Route attribute it self. With the default route definition, it will work for yourSite/mvc/test request.
I am new to WebAPI.
I have a MVC project and webApi project both reside under the **same solution**. Also, BLL Class library and DAL class library reside under the same solution.
Earlier, my MVC project will talk to the BLL now I am trying to create a WebAPi project which stands in between MVC and BLL.
Here is what I have come up with so far :
I'm using the HTTPClient to post to a WebApi project. My post method on my controller accepts a single parameter (a model).
StatsCriteria criteria = new StatsCriteria();
......
var client = new HttpClient();
var response = client.PostAsJsonAsync("http://localhost:52765/api/reports", criteria).Result;
.......
Here's the signature for my controller in Webapi
[HttpPost]
public CMAReportVM Reports([FromBody] StatsCriteria criteria)
{
var cmaReport = Service3.GetCMAReport(criteria.Mlsnums);
//Create Map to enable mapping business object to View Model
Mapper.CreateMap<CMAReport, CMAReportVM>();
// Maps model to VM model class
var cmaVM = Mapper.Map<CMAReport, CMAReportVM>(cmaReport);
reutn cmaVM;
}
// and here's my routing:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
I am getting the following
405 : Method not allowed.
As the WebAPI and MVC project both reside under same sloution I am not sure where/how to host my webapi.
I'm trying to navigate to a page which its URL is in the following format:
localhost:xxxxx/User/{id}/VerifyEmail?secretKey=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I've added a new route in the RouteConfig.cs file and so my RouteConfig.cs looks like this:
public class RouteConfig
{
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(
name: "VerifyEmail",
url: "User/{id}/VerifyEmail",
defaults: new { controller = "User", action = "VerifyEmail" }
);
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index",
id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
}
}
Unfortunately, when trying to navigate to that URL I get this page:
<Error>
<Message>
No HTTP resource was found that matches the request URI 'http://localhost:52684/User/f2acc4d0-2e03-4d72-99b6-9b9b85bd661a/VerifyEmail?secretKey=e9bf3924-681c-4afc-a8b0-3fd58eba93fe'.
</Message>
<MessageDetail>
No type was found that matches the controller named 'User'.
</MessageDetail>
</Error>
and here is my UserController:
public class UserController : Controller
{
// GET /User/{id}/VerifyEmail
[HttpGet]
public ActionResult VerifyEmail(string id, string secretKey)
{
try
{
User user = UsersBL.Instance.Verify(id, secretKey);
//logger.Debug(String.Format("User %s just signed-in in by email.",
user.DebugDescription()));
}
catch (Exception e)
{
throw new Exception("Failed", e);
}
return View();
}
}
Please tell me what am I doing wrong?
In my case, the controller was defined as:
public class DocumentAPI : ApiController
{
}
Changing it to the following worked!
public class DocumentAPIController : ApiController
{
}
The class name has to end with Controller!
Edit: As #Corey Alix has suggested, please make sure that the controller has a public access modifier; non-public controllers are ignored by the route handler!
In my case after spending almost 30 minutes trying to fix the problem, I found what was causing it:
My route defined in WebApiConfig.cs was like this:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "ControllersApi",
routeTemplate: "{controller}/{action}"
);
and it should be like this:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "ControllersApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
as you see it was interfering with the standard route defined in RouteConfig.cs.
In my case I was using Web API and I did not have the public defined for my controller class.
Things to check for Web API:
Controller Class is declares as public
Controller Class implements ApiController : ApiController
Controller Class name needs to end in Controller
Check that your url has the /api/ prefix. eg. 'host:port/api/{controller}/{actionMethod}'
Another solution could be to set the controllers class permission to public.
set this:
class DocumentAPIController : ApiController
{
}
to:
public class DocumentAPIController : ApiController
{
}
In my case I wanted to create a Web API controller, but, because of inattention, my controller was inherited from Controller instead of ApiController.
In my case, the routing was defined as:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "{*catchall}",
defaults: new { controller = "WarehouseController" }
while Controller needs to be dropped in the config:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "{*catchall}",
defaults: new { controller = "Warehouse" }
In my case I was seeing this because I had two controllers with the same name:
One for handling Customer orders called CustomersController and the other for getting events also called CustomersController
I had missed the duplication, I renamed the events one to CustomerEventsController and it worked perfectly
In my case it was a case of over-aggressive caching by the WebHostHttpControllerTypeResolver.
Fix:
Delete all files (or in my case just any files named "MS-ApiControllerTypeCache.xml") under this path:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root
Restart the app pool
credit: https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/questions/9897/webapi-controllers-not-being-found-in-sitecore-8-2
Faced the same problem. Checked all the answers here but my problem was in namespacing.
Routing attributes exists in System.Web.Mvc and in System.Web.Http. My usings included Mvc namespace and it was the reason. For webapi u need to use System.Net.Http.
Experienced this similar issue. We are dealing with multiple APIs and we were hitting the wrong port number and getting this error. Took us forever to realize. Make sure the port of the api you are hitting is the correct port.
I have also faced the same problem. I searched a lot and found that the class level permission is needed. by default, the class permission level is internal so I thought that it won't affect the program execution. But it got affected actually, you should give your class permission as public so that, you won't face any problem.
And one more. if it is webapi project, your webapirouteconfig file will overwrite the routeconfig.cs file settings. So update the webapi routeconfig file as well to work properly.
In my solution, I have a project called "P420" and into other project I had a P420Controller.
When .NET cut controller name to find route, conflict with other project, used as a library into.
Hope it helps.
In my case I was calling the APi like
http://locahost:56159/api/loginDataController/GetLoginData
while it should be like
http://locahost:56159/api/loginData/GetLoginData
removed Controller from URL and it started working ...
Peace!
In my solution, when I added the my new Controller to the project, the wizard asked me if I want to set the location of the controller into the App_Code folder.
The wizard warned me, if I do not locate it into the the App_Code folder, the controller type won't be found.
But I didn't read the whole warning, because I wanted to locate the file to elsewhere..
so that's why it didn't work for me.
After I added a new controller and let it to be in the App_Code by default, everything worked.
And one more answer to this for good measure...
In my case another project had been accidentally added as a reference by someone which brought in all of that project's controllers and causing route conflicts. Removing it and moving the code that was needed from it to a better place where it could be referenced without bringing in all of the controllers was the solution.
Go to the location
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root and find withe the file name "MS-ApiControllerTypeCache.xml"
and
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root
Delete all files named MS-ApiControllerTypeCache.xml from the root folder.
For my case, the issue ought to be addressed this way
I have a ASP.NET web application project, I implemented a WebApi controller and now proceeding with a MVC controller.
I've added a new MVC controller (eg. "Test") and selected to add it with "empty read and write actions".
The controller is created with various CRUD methods, however the Index action is behaving unexpectedly.
By default the Index action does not take any arguments:
public ActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}
Now if I try to invoke this method using url "/Test/Index", the method is not being called.
But if I type url "/Test/Index/1" the Index action is run.
It looks to me that its related to routing so I checked the RouteConfig class which looks like:
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
}
Id is set to optional and my understanding is I should not be required to provide a parameter value in Index method?
I created another project and checked this behavior and it works fine.
So wondering what in this project making MVC controller behaving differently?
Is mixing WebApi controllers with MVC controllers having some side effect (making it a special case)?
Let me know if you need any information to answer this question.
Update:
I did modify the WebApiConfig for making API controller work as per my requirement, it looks like this:
public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "{controller}/{action}",
defaults: new { controller = "iclock", action = "cdata" }
);
}
I could not understand why it affect the MVC controller route? I got it now with answers provided.
Update 2:
The problem in this case is I can not (or can I?) prefix api in web api route as a third party device is sending GET and POST request using a fixed url, like following:
GET /iclock/cdata?SN=xxxxxx&options=all&pushver=2.0.2&language=XX
GET /iclock/cdata?SN=xxxxxx&type=time
POST /iclock/cdata?SN=123456&table=ATTLOG&Stamp=2011-04-05T17:40:20
I achieved above request handling functionality making changes into the WebApiConfig route. Now need a front end UI for which I am developing a MVC controller with CRUD operation.
What should be ideal approach in this case?
It could be when you navigate to Test/Index it doesn't know if it should use the web route where there is an optional "id" or the api route where there is no "id". If possible I would prefix your Web API routes, such as "api/{controller}/{action}" as described in the MVC Web API template.
For your second example, applications that access the API would simple prefix the URLs with "api/". If they are using the URLs you specified and cannot be changed, then I think you may be stuck because when the request comes in there is still the problem of not knowing which route to use.
If the URLs can be changed, as mentioned above, simple prefix with "api/".
EDIT: Updated my answer based on the extra information/code-snippet provided.
EDIT: Updated again
Did you look in WebApiConfig instead of RouteConfig in App_Start
public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
}
You have a conflict in your routing table. Your Web API routing table is now the same as your standard MVC routing table. Your Web API routing table (the one that is initialized with MapHttpRoute should be declared as: routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}". Also, you shouldn't have modified the Web API route. It is not cast in stone that it must be api/{controller}/{id}, but there is a certain convention that you should follow. Try reseting your routes to be like the following and then try again:
public static class WebApiConfig
{
public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
}
}
public class RouteConfig
{
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
}
}
So, first reset to normal routing configuration and test. After that make changes slowly and follow the result.