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c#asp.net-mvcasp.net-web-apiasp.net-mvc-5asp.net-web-api2
Sam
Sam

Reputation: 1343

Combining MVC 5 routing with Web Api 2

After reading a couple of Web Api 2 articles I decided to give it a try and use it in my current project because there is a lot of JSON data being send between the Views and the backend services. I'm making it a multipage application.

What I can't figure out is how to keep the routing from MVC and combine this with Web Api 2 to handle the data communication. Here are a couple of options that crossed my mind:

  1. Creating 2 seperate projects: a MVC projects that handles to routing using controllers and returning views and a webapi projects that handles the data. (How will they both be accessible?)

  2. Creating a MVC project and a submap with all the API's. (What about Separation of concerns?)

  3. Creating a webapi project and make use of Area functionality where in MVC controllers are used to route.

  4. Come to a conclusion that I better stick with MVC controllers to handel data communication for multipage applications.

Example solution structure:

Project.Core
Project.Services
Project.Data
Project...

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1114

Answers (1)

jhilden
jhilden

Reputation: 12419

The WebAPI2 routing is separate from the MVC routing. The beauty of the API 2 routing is that you can make it whatever you want, completely independent of the controller and action name. Take the following example:

public class TriggerApiController : ApiController
{
    private readonly ITriggerApiService _triggerApiService;

    public TriggerApiController(ITriggerApiService triggerApiService)
    {
        _triggerApiService = triggerApiService;
    }

    [HttpGet]
    [Route("api/v1/trigger/{externalID}")]
    public async Task<IHttpActionResult> GetTrigger(Guid externalID)
    {
        var triggerApiModel = await _triggerApiService.GetAsync(externalID);

        if (triggerApiModel != null)
        {
            return Ok(triggerApiModel);
        }

        return NotFound();
    }
}

Important things to notice:

  1. I'm extending ApiController and not just Controller
  2. My method name GetTrigger is not the same as my route

So for your use case, I would use a single web project, but put all the APIs into their own controllers (that extend ApiController) and specify a route for each API.

Upvotes: 2

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