A look into Web API - Creating a simple Web API application... - Part 2

Click here to view part 1



Lets create a model class for our sample and use it to test...





I had created a class called TestData.cs and defined it as below.




As said, I am extending the class from ApiController and added the following code...

Above code will make use of my model TestData to generate some sample data and to display them when invoked.

Now we are all set to run this web service and display the data to end users. When you press F5, you should be able to see the result below.. (I am using chrome to run it)

That's just getting started with Web API's... Happy coding...

A look into Web API - Creating a simple Web API application... - Part 1

ASP.Net Web API is a powerful framework to retrieve data and to serve a broad range of clients. Once created, it can be used to access data within mobile applications too.

   Web API's support developers to create RESTful services and the request is controlled by Controllers, which is similar to MVC controllers, but here the class will be derived from APIController when compared to MVC applications where it will be just Controller. This framework is really helpful to build HTTP based services and can very well control the returned data type  to be json or XML.

   If you are developing an application in MVC, it well suites to have Web API, as it is also based on routing concepts. More over, a given set of data can be accessed/modified through GET,PUT,DELETE etc.....

Now lets see how to create a simple Web API and invoke it through its URL....

I will create a new web API, by making the following choice : ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Application

    After making the selection, make sure you select Web API option (with View Engine type being Razor).

  Sample generated file structure below :

 
   Main controller method inherits from APIController with default value being ValuesController. For tutorial purpose, I will create a new controller WebAPITestController  that would generate and return data on invoking the method.

  Now we have the controller ready. Since this is a regular Controller, we should extend the class with  Sytem.Web.Http.ApiController to make it a Web API or we can select the following option when creating a controller, which will load with few empty basic method structures....

Click here to continue Creating a simple Web API....


 

Displaying an ascx control within MVC Razor view (as partial view)

In this blog, I would like to talk about including ascx controls within MVC pages and display them.

    Though, this one is not the preferred approach in general, but still if needed for common scenarios with avoidable runat=Server attribute elements, then yes, we can implement the below...

   Though I was able to successfully do this, but I was not successful in implementing the server side controls within the .ascx controls or .aspx pages. (will be glad to know if  any one did this way)

Lets see an example of how this can be achieved.

   In your MVC project,

• navigate to Views and right click to select Add new item. 
• Select a web user control and name it testview.ascx
• Implement any basic html text and display any items you want to and save it.
• Go to your MVC view (any .cshtml file ) that needs to display this control.
•  Add this line, where the control should show up.. @(Html.Partial("testview",null));

Also, make sure the following changes are done, before running the project..

RegisterRoutes method should be defined as below..

 public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)

        {

            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.aspx/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(

                name: "Default",

                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",

                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }

            );

        }

Also delete the code behind files and designer files.  

This should be good enough to get you started.....

Using Install Package commands within Package Manager console

The moment I decided to get started with my new MVC project, NuGet package manager is the best bet to go further and install  Entity Framework, Web Optimization, MVC etc.

   Though there is a UI driven option, but also another way to do it through console is what I had been doing ( and I prefer that way).  Listing few options that I used to install from package manager console.

 For installing Entity framework, you could use the below one :

PM> Install-Package EntityFramework

The above might install a version more later than the one you might need. For example, when you need Entity Framework 4.3.1, but the latest is 6, you can still get a specific version by typing the following...

PM> Install-Package EntityFramework -Version 4.3.1


Using the -Version will help for all the nu-get packages that needs to be installed specifically... In this case, this might not work, since we have a latest version already installed, to fix this, we need to do a force uninstall and then install specific version as below...

PM> Uninstall-Package EntityFramework -force

PM> Install-Package EntityFramework -Version 4.3.1

Similarly, for Web API, you could do the following.

PM> Install-Package Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi

For specific version of Newton-soft Json (using json in our project)

PM> Install-Package Newtonsoft.Json -Version 4.5.6

To use the help option and to view list of commands..

PM> get-help Nuget

To get a list of all available packages

PM> Get-package -ListAvailable

   Running the above is going to take a lot of time, as the number of available packages will be more... You can try a restricted search based on a specific package as below.

PM> Get-Package -ListAvailable -Filter EntityFramework

In the above case, we are listing only EntityFramework related packages, thus narrowing the amount of items we need to go through.