Entity Framework outputs XML instead of JSON - asp.net-mvc

Question

In my controller classes I have a lot of methods which output properly formatted JSON data. All of them perform a database query.
E.g.
// GET api/User
public IEnumerable<Object> GetUsers()
{
var query = from user in db.Users
orderby user.Name
select new { Name = user.Name};
return query.AsEnumerable<Object>();
}
Now I'd like to return the properties of one of my classes.
public IEnumerable<Object> GetProperties()
{
return typeof(MyClass)
.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance)
.Select(p => p.Name).ToList();
}
However, instead of outputing JSON Entity Framework gives me some XML like
<ArrayOfstring xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/Arrays">
<string>Property1</string>
<string>Property2</string>
</ArrayOfstring>
I've tried to convert the output in the controller method.
public string GetProperties()
{
var results = typeof(ComplexInfo)
.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance)
.Select(p => p.Name).ToList();
return JsonConvert.SerializeObject(results, Formatting.Indented,
new JsonSerializerSettings {
PreserveReferencesHandling = PreserveReferencesHandling.Objects
});
}
Unfortunately it's still outputting XML.
<string xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/">[
"Property1",
"Property2",
]</string>
How can I make sure to retrieve JSON objects from the controller?

Answer 1

I had also faced same issue in my web api. solution is, you have to remove XmlFormatter from WebApiConfig.
public static class WebApiConfig
{
public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
var appXmlType = config.Formatters.XmlFormatter.SupportedMediaTypes.
FirstOrDefault(t => t.MediaType == "application/xml");
config.Formatters.XmlFormatter.SupportedMediaTypes.Remove(appXmlType);
}
}