C# Receiving empty object in controller - c#

I'm trying to get some data from the request body in a POST Controller, but the console shows empty props:
The Post Controller:
[HttpPost("{id}/features")]
public ActionResult<bool> AddFeatureAsync(Guid Id, [FromBody] AddRoleFeatureRequest request)
{
Console.WriteLine(request.Name);
Console.WriteLine(request.Description);
Console.WriteLine(request.Id);
return true;
}
The AddRoleFeatureRequest class:
public class AddRoleFeatureRequest
{
public Guid Id;
public string? Name;
public string? Description;
}
The JSON data from Postman (Using body raw as Json):
{
"name": "Feature ABC",
"description": "description",
"id": "7e12b0ad-2c82-46f0-a69e-8538efb0aa60"
}
What am I doing wrong?

I'm trying to get some data from the request body in a POST
Controller, but the console shows empty props:
Your reason for getting null data on your console or in controller is pretty obvious because you have defined your AddRoleFeatureRequest class field only which doesn't allow to set any value on it. For instance, public string? Name; is a field not property. To set value, you must implement valid setter. Thus, it can be treated as valid property and able to assign value into it.
Solution:
public class AddRoleFeatureRequest
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public string? Name { get; set; }
public string? Description { get; set; }
}
Note: Property without getter and setter will always consider as field, it will not allow you to assign value from outside.
Output:
Note: Modifying your class defination would completely resolve your issue. No other changes required.

Your "AddRoleFeatureRequest" class has capitals and your json data does not. This could be the source of your problems.

the attribute names might be the reasons because they ar different then the json keys, retry it while considering letters cases,

Related

Validate input to a POST request?

I have made a controller for a REST POST api endpoint, is as following
public IActionResult POST([FromBody]Person person)
{
....
}
and where Person is defined as
public class Person
{
public string Name {get; set;}
public int Age {get; set;}
}
meaning that the post request is able deserialise an input like this
{
"Name": "Peter",
"Age": 2
}
without any problems...
Problems occurs though when I pass something like
{
"Name": "Peter",
"Age": 2,
"Error": 123123123
}
It still creates an Person which have the first two filled out..
I would like to trigger an error here stating that the input format is wrong.
I am storing the first input - and then use it to compare the next input based on the first one.
If they are the same - nothing should happen.
But since the last input contains a invalid field but the actual instance the input created is completely similar to the first one - I get an error on they are not equal?
I assume the error statement in the JSON is somehow stored in the new instance?
but how do i make sure that the input is being validated before the controller created an instance given the JSON input?
1) to validate your Person model, you could have something like
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
public class Person
{
[Required]
[StringLength(250, MinimumLength = 2)]
public string Name { get; set; }
[Required]
[Range(1, 121)]
public int Age { get; set; }
}
and inside controller's POST action you can use if(!ModelState.IsValid){.....}
2) to compare if two Person instances are equal you could override Equals():
public class Person
{
...
...
public override bool Equals(object obj) =>
(obj is Person otherPerson) ? (Name,Age) == (otherPerson.Name,otherPerson.Age): false;
}
here current instance's Name and Age are compared to other instance's Name and Age. It will allow using if ( person.Equals ( someOtherPErsonInstance ) ){....}
3) if you need to make sure extra fields are not present in the POST request, you could add custom implementation IModelBinder, or accept raw data in POST action, then, parse and check.

Model Binding ignoring properties that have the JsonIgnore attribute

I'm building a web api microservice using Core 3. I have a class defined as follows:
public class UserSourceList
{
[JsonIgnore]
public string UserId { get; set; }
[JsonIgnore]
public string ListId { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
[JsonConverter(typeof(StringEnumConverter))]
public ListTypes ListType { get; set; }
public List<string> Ids { get; set; }
public DateTimeOffset CreationTime { get; set; }
}
When the framework attempts to bind the data provided by a HTTP PUT, it will not populate the UserId and ListId fields. As a result, model binding is failing during validation and returning a HTTP 400, stating that UserId and ListId are required.
The controller's action method is defined as follows:
[HttpPut("{userId:userid}/{listId:listid}", Name = "ReplaceUserList")]
public ActionResult Replace(string userId, string listId, UserSourceList model)
{
return Ok(_listManager.ReplaceUserList(model.UserId, model.ListId, model));
}
A typical call to the API would look similar to this:
PUT /api/v1/listmgmt/abc123def456/c788f2f7b7984424910726d4a290be26
PUT Body
{
"name": "Test",
"listType": "Eans",
"ids": ["97814571867716", "9781430257615", "9780982550670"],
"userId":"abc123def456",
"listId":"c788f2f7b7984424910726d4a290be26"
}
If I removed the JsonIgnore Attribute from the UserId and ListId properties of the model, everything binds as expected.
Is it expected behavior that model binding will ignore fields flagged with JsonIgnore?
I know I can work around it by changing how my validation code works or I can split my model. I would like to understand the current behavior as it is different from what I expected and experienced with ASP.NET MVC 4 and WebApi 2.
Thanks
Short answer, Newtonsoft Json.Net is being used to deserialize the post/put body when the content type is application/json. Therefore, the userId and listId parameters are being ignored during deserialization, but evaluated during model validation.
I removed the JsonIgnore Attribute as well as all the Data Annotations, and changed to the FluentValidation package which provided the ability at runtime to configure how the body should be validated based up the type of call made.
I think the reason is because of this:
[HttpPut("{userId:userid}/{listId:listid}", Name = "ReplaceUserList")]
userId and listId are required and cannot be ignored because they are defined in the annotation HttpPut. I think you need to remove them from HttpPut's parameters and find another way to get around this.
Hope this helps!

Not able to post data to web api controller action using FromBody Attribute

Client Side model (Type Script File) :
export interface IRecord {
id: string
amount: string,
amountConst: string,
amountLC: string,
}
Server Side model/class : I am using newtonsoft json.
If i change the Json property value to name of property in typescript file then
that column value is not visible on UI.
public class Records
{
[Key]
public string ID { get; set; }
[Column("Amount")]
[JsonProperty("Amount")]
public string Amount { get; set; }
[Column("Amount Const $")]
[JsonProperty("Amount Const $")]
public string AmountConst { get; set; }
[Column("Amount LC")]
[JsonProperty("Amount LC")]
public string AmountLC { get; set; }
}
Web Api Contoller :
[HttpPost]
[Route("Export")]
[ActionName("Export")]
public FileResult Export([FromBody]List<Records> Record)
{
try
{
}
}
Server side I am getting the exact count of records from client side
but with null property values.
To make it work you should change either the way you send a client model or server-side bindings.
If you specify [JsonProperty] attribute, the JSON deserializer expects that the JSON property name will be exactly the same as the value of propertyName argument.
For your case the model you send should look like this
[{
"ID": "11",
"Amount": "1",
"Amount Const $": "1.0",
"Amount LC": "aaa"
}]
the interface IRecord can't be used since it couldn't be bound to a server-side model.
So, you have several options to make it work:
drop IRecord interface and send the object with the structure like shown above
change server-side model so both models' properties match
write a custom Model binder for Records type (please check this) to handle your case

DataMember's Name property is ignored with [FromUri] property in WebApi service

We are creating RestService with Asp.Net WebApi. But for some reason Name property is ignored in DataMember attribute when trying to deserialize complex property with [FromURI] attribute.
For example we might have:
Method:
public IHttpActionResult Get([FromUri]User user)
Model:
[DataContract]
public class User
{
[DataMember(Name = "username")]
public string Username{ get; set; }
[DataMember(Name = "isActive", IsRequired = false)]
public bool? Active { get; set; }
}
When deserializing user we get username as expected, but null for Active. On the other hand when serializing data we get both isActive and username as expected. If we send request with active in query string it works as expected.
It's obviously problem with IModelBinder. It doesn't use DataMember's Name property for some reason. I checked what formaters are included and 4 default ones are registered:
System.Net.Http.Formatting.JsonMediaTypeFormatter
System.Net.Http.Formatting.XmlMediaTypeFormatter
System.Net.Http.Formatting.FormUrlEncodedMediaTypeFormatter
System.Net.Http.Formatting.JQueryMvcFormUrlEncodedFormatter
I don't have a way to check which one is used on request. I would assume that its FormUrlEncodedMediaTypeFormatter but I can't be sure. Also, I am not sure if it even supports Name property.
I already checked for a solution and closest topic I could find was WebAPI DataMember Name not used when de/serializing via application/x-www-form-urlencoded but it doesn't use [FromUri] but application/x-www-form-urlencoded property and it wasn't really solved.
Any ideas, pointers or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Use [FromQuery] instead other attributes.
And model for your request
http://localhost:8080/api/users?username=John&isActive=true
[Route("api/users")]
public class UsersController : Controller
{
[HttpGet]
public IHttpActionResult Get(User user)
{
//...
}
}
Will looks like
public class User
{
[FromQuery(Name = "username")]
public string Username{ get; set; }
[FromQuery(Name = "isActive")]
public bool? Active { get; set; }
}
Anyway best practice is to keep names in model as it parameters names in query.
In this case you dont have to provide "Name" parameter, only keep [FromQuery] on queryClass, and lower casing .Net provide automaticly.
You must check your "get" request. Your get request must be like this;
GET api/foo?username=fooname&active=false
You don't have to DataContract and DataMember attribute to just achieve this. These attribute just for another thing, its not the main reason to use for.
After get valid hit on your get method, in your method you can check modelstate like;
if (ModelState.IsValid) {
/// your code goes here
}

Web API model validation and default values

This is the spiritual successor to my previous question Web API attribute routing and validation - possible?, which I think was too general to answer. Most of those issues are solved, but the default value question remains.
Basically I have solved many pieces of the puzzle. I have this:
[HttpGet]
[Route("test/{id}"]
public IHttpActionResult RunTest([FromUri]TestRequest request)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid) return BadRequest(ModelState);
return Ok();
}
My TestRequest class:
public class TestRequest
{
public string id { get; set; }
[DefaultValue("SomethingDefault")]
public string something { get; set; }
}
The problem is that if no parameter is in the query string for something, the model is "valid" and yet something is null.
If I specify a blank value for something (i.e. GET test/123?something=), then the default value comes into play, and the model is valid again.
Why is this? How can I get a default value into my model here? As a bonus, why is it when a parameter is not specified, the default value is not used, but when a blank string is explicitly specific, the default value is used?
(I've been trawling through the ASP.NET stack source code and am knee-deep in model binders and binding contexts. But my best guess can't be right - it looks like the DefaultValueAttribute is used only if the parameter value is null. But that's not the case here)
You need to initialize the default value in the constructor for your Model:
public class TestRequest
{
public TestRequest()
{
this.something = "SomethingDefault";
}
public string id { get; set; }
[DefaultValue("SomethingDefault")]
public string something { get; set; }
}
Update:
With C# 6, you don't need to initialize it in the constructor anymore. You can assign the default value to the property directly:
public class TestRequest
{
public string id { get; set; }
[DefaultValue("SomethingDefault")]
public string something { get; set; } = "SomethingDefault";
}
As documentation of the DefaultValueAttribute states:
Note
A DefaultValueAttribute will not cause a member to be
automatically initialized with the attribute's value. You must set the
initial value in your code.
In the case where you're providing no value for your something property, the property is initialized and the ModelBinder doesn't have a value to assign to it and thus the property defaults to its default value.
Specifying the default in the constructor works for when no parameter is specified at all, but when a blank string is specified, null is put into the field instead.
As such, adding [DefaultValue("")] actually worked the best - when a blank string was specified, a blank string was passed in. Then the constructor can specify default values for when the parameter is missing.
To get around this, I've created PreserveBlankStringAttribute, derives from DefaultValueAttribute which is equivalent to [DefaultValue("")].
I would very much welcome a better answer than this, please.

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