I am developing a MVC app. I want to develop some web api's so i can use them from other projects.
Can this be done as currently when i do create a web api project it creates all the controllers and views etc.
Also would this be the place where you setup the types e.g. contact type which contains all the objects for a contact e.g. name, address etc.
Just need to get it right before i get my head into it.
Thanks
You could perfectly fine define your Web API controllers (deriving from ApiController) inside separate projects (class libraries). The Web API is normally RESTFul and Web API controllers don't return views. They return models which are normally XML or JSON serialized. You could even host the Web API outside of an ASP.NET application in its own host which could be a Windows service or Console application for example. You don't even need IIS. The following article described a self hosting scenario.
As far as the consuming client side is concerned, that could be absolutely any kind of application ranging from desktop application to another ASP.NET site. The client application could use the native HttpClient class to consume the WEB API or any other HTTP capable client such as WebClient or even HttpWebRequest. The client could even be written on some other non .NET platform. All that is required is the capacity to send HTTP requests.
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I am quite perplexed over the use of Web Api in a MVC application being developed at my company.I recently joined the project and wondering why they are using this.The application uses JQuery AJAX functionality to pull data for each Tab in a MultiTab Page without refreshing it.
The application here is neither providing data service nor consuming any Web API service.This can be easily achieved without using REST verbs.It is directly connecting to database like a typical web application.
I am holding back myself to raise this question with the team since I haven't used Web API much but has a conceptual idea.
Am I missing something here ?
Microsoft's Web API MVC technology is typically used for external components to interact with the system - not generally a requirement for a standard MVC Web Application.
With that said, I'm not perfectly clear on the architecture. A few points of note:
jQuery AJAX is a perfectly valid (and usually preferred) method to retrieve information for tab pages - it provides a SPA (Single Page Application) "feel" to the site and generally improves performance all around. This does not mean that they're using a Web API
MVC is a framework used for many web applications, including Microsoft's Web API projects as well as ASP.NET MVC Web projects. The use of MVC doesn't mean that they're using a Web API.
A RESTful approach isn't just for Web APIs. Indeed, many find it a cleaner approach when using regular MVC Web Applications, as it tends to be more semantic to what actions are actually being performed (GET to get a view, POST to post data, DELETE, etc.) There's no real reason not to use REST verbs (which are actually just HTTP verbs, but called "REST" when we use them in a certain way). The use of HTTP verbs doesn't mean that we're using a Web API.
To conclude, The MVC Web API framework is it's own technology that's similar to MVC Web Applications, but more geared towards working with non-visual requests and responses, instead tailored to programmatic interfacing.
If this is indeed a Web API being used and not a case of MVC practices that you happen to be unfamiliar with, then yes, I think it's a good question to raise (at least from a technical standpoint - politically, maybe not, but we can't answer that for you).
A typical setup is to have multiple projects, one of which is a Web Application, which makes use of shared project(s) for domain/business classes and data persistence. Additionally, a Web API project is often used to provide access to the system for external components, but this is a separate "presentation layer" project from the aforementioned Web Application.
There may be cases where a Web API application is written as the core interface between the internal system and the rest of the outside world, where the MVC Web Application then interacts with the Web API, but this is a corner case that should only be done with specific reason, in my opinion (unless I misread, this seems to be the case you're stating?)
Using both MVC and WebAPI together in a ASP.NET Web application is quite common. Whilst you can provide HTML through WebAPI and you can provide JSON through MVC it's much cleaner to use the best technology for each.
WebAPI in particular lets you define an API once and then generates JSON, XML, ... for you based on the request.
or must it be on the same server as the app calling it? I am new to web api so i am going through some tutorials, but they all assume the web api is part of the mvc app. Also, they show the calls to the api being done with javascript, but I want to make the calls in my MVC app controller. Is this possible?
You can host a Web API anywhere.
The only special thing to have into account when the Web API isn't in the same server that a web site that uses it, is that, by default, the Web API doesn't accept requests from a different domain. For example, if the web site is in "server1.com" and the Web API in "server2.com", then the calls to the Web API from the web server will be rejected.
If this is the case, you need to configure the Web API server to enable CORS (cross origin resource sharing), so that it accepts requests from a different domain. If you want more info about this, please look at this document:
Enabling Cross-Origin Requests in ASP.NET Web API 2
The Web Api can live wherever you want it to. Is typical to see a limited API used mostly to handle AJAX for the MVC application live with the MVC application, mostly because it makes it simpler to construct URLs to the endpoints. If you host the Web Api externally, then you'll have to hardcode the API endpoint URLs, as there's no way to use something like Url.Action to generate them automatically, any more. Regardless, it's a perfectly acceptable way to handle things.
You will probably at least want to add the base URL for the Web Api as an app setting in your Web.config, though. That way, you don't end up with hardcoded references to a particular domain strewn all about your app. That makes moving your Web Api to a different domain much easier, especially when talking about going from development to production.
It is also entirely possible to use a Web Api within your actual controller actions. You'll just need to use something like HttpClient to connect to it and issue requests.
I've a web site developed using MVC 4 ASP.net application. I'm new to .net platform & I want to add web service which would return me operating system name of users device based on certain input.
Assuming I've logic to capture OS information using inputted data, how do I go forward in building this web service?
Do I need to have a complete separate solution file which will have a web service or in existing MVC 4 asp.net application itself, should I create a new project which would be of type "WCF Service Application"? Again I don't know much about WCF service either, if I use it, how would the URL be accessible, etc?
Can anyone give me some insights?
Note: I've also a separate REST web service which is a completely separate solution with separate projects but deployed on same IIS.
Thanks in Advance!
You don't need to create a WebAPI project just for what you described (i'm assuming one or a few end points).
Simply use MVC controllers that return JSON for example, this way you deal with a single framework.
Reasons to move to Web API is if you need support for CORS, need content negotiation for results etc. From what you are describing it's completely fine to stay with MVC.
I have a MVC web application and I make some ajax calls from the client to get back json data. Right now I just use MVC Action methods to return this data. I was wondering if I should be using the ASP.Net Web Api for these.
I understand that if I was building a REST solution I should be using it.
But in this case would it be justified to add the extra complexity? Is there any speed gain? I don't really need the Content Negotiation feature or the OData Support.
According to the post here (and the benchmark it references), Web API is a bit faster. Web api performance?
ASP.net Web api support both JSON and xml. Web Api is for implement rest web service on top of MVC application. It would add extra complexity for the application but you implement web api related method in separate controller.
Rest web services are usually faster than Normal SOAP web services.
In your case if your clients are just a web client no need to implement web services. But If you need to share service for different client (widows applications, windows services, third party applications) implement rest service using web API
I've desgined my ASP.NET MVC application using the Domain Driven Design, and I got the following projects:
MyApp.Core - the app core, contains the domain models etc.
MyApp.Infrastructure - the app main infrastrucutre, contains implementation for the domain model storing (repos etc.) using EF.
MyApp.Web.Core - domain models, services declaration (interfaces) and such only for web (e.g. IFormAuthenticationTicketSupplier, IOAuthAuthenticationProvider etc.)
MyApp.Web.Infrastructure - web implementation
MyApp.Web.UI - ASP.NET MVC standard application.
This application should be used by enterprise with multiple servers, etc. Currently, the application calls a service in the infrastructure layer at the controllers, which uses Repositories and EF. I can connect to the DB server using the connection string.
When digging about this topic at Google, I've read that some approches taken when creating an enterprise application are create an Application server and Web server. In the application server - storing a WCF service, and in the web server just calling it.
I'd like to know if I should do so (if creating a WCF service is the right and required approch when dealing with enterprises):
- Why should someone not just use the Services in the controllers and instead use an API?
- In case I'm using an API, it won't slow down the response? since even if the computers are on the same network, I still open an HTTP request.
- If I should use WCF, or ASP.NET WebAPI?
Thanks for any feedback and help!
First, regarding your projects, is there a need to split up MyApp.Web.Core, MyApp.Web.Infrastructure and MyApp.Web.UI? Sure they may be separate responsibilities, but sometimes dependency hygiene trumps encapsulation. You can always leave them in separate folders and namespaces. I wouldn't extract something into a separate project unless I needed to reference that as a library from elsewhere.
As far as the application service, that also depends on your needs. If the only place that would call that application service is the ASP.NET MVC app, then there isn't much of a need to extract an application service. There are some benefits however. One is that you don't have to worry about all of the dependencies required for a service - you just references it via Url. And of course you have the ability to call the service from places other than the controller, although the MVC controller can act as a pure HTTP service as well. You also have the ability to deploy updates to a specific service without releasing the MVC app. But you do have the burden of maintaining a separate service. If you do go that route, go with the WebAPI, WCF is just too much abstraction.