If i want to use WebAPI as a service to connect to multiple databases on different servers and retrieve the data that my MVC application will use what is the best way to do it?
I don't want do have ApiController(s) in the same project as my MVC project so do i need to add a new WebApi project (delete all except controllers and stuff that the template adds to have a clean project) that my MVC application will reference?
Here's the list of tutorials/blog posts i used to learn about WebAPI:
ASP.NET Web API - Screencast series with downloadable sample code
http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2012/03/16/asp-net-web-api-screencast-series-with-downloadable-sample-code-part-1.aspx
Consuming ASP.NET Web API Service using HttpClient
http://debugmode.net/2012/03/03/creating-first-http-service-using-asp-net-web-api-part1-of-many/
http://debugmode.net/2012/03/07/consuming-asp-net-web-api-service-using-httpclient-part2-of-many/
CRUD operation using ASP.NET Web API and MVC4
http://www.dotnetglobe.com/2012/03/crud-operation-using-aspnet-web-api-in.html
http://www.dotnetglobe.com/2012/03/crud-operation-using-aspnet-web-api-in_28.html
Creating a .Net queryable client for ASP.Net Web API oData services
http://blog.petegoo.com/index.php/2012/03/11/creating-a-net-queryable-client-for-asp-net-web-api-odata-services/
Using HttpClient to Consume ASP.NET Web API REST Services
http://www.johnnycode.com/blog/2012/02/23/consuming-your-own-asp-net-web-api-rest-service/
Client side support with the ASP.NET Web API
https://msmvps.com/blogs/theproblemsolver/archive/2012/03/13/client-side-support-with-the-asp-net-web-api.aspx
Create and Consume ASP.Net Web API REST Services - MVC4
http://www.askamoeba.com/Opensource/Opensourcedetail/144/Create-and-Consume-ASP-Net-Web-API-REST-Services-MVC4
Building and consuming REST services with ASP.NET Web API using MediaTypeFormatter and OData support
http://robbincremers.me/2012/02/16/building-and-consuming-rest-services-with-asp-net-web-api-and-odata-support/
Using JSON.NET with ASP.NET Web API
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/henrikn/archive/2012/02/18/using-json-net-with-asp-net-web-api.aspx
Creating Custom CSVMediaTypeFormatter In ASP.NET Web API for Comma-Separated Values (CSV) Format
http://www.tugberkugurlu.com/archive/creating-custom-csvmediatypeformatter-in-asp-net-web-api-for-comma-separated-values-csv-format
Implementing CORS support in ASP.NET Web APIs
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/carlosfigueira/archive/2012/02/20/implementing-cors-support-in-asp-net-web-apis.aspx
How I see Web API
http://thedatafarm.com/blog/asp-net/how-i-see-web-api/
You may use a completely different project to host your Web API controllers. Yet in this case you need to think about the deployment.
Web API is just a web project. It will have its own config file. It will be likely that it will run in its own worker process (depending on how you deploy it).
So if you partition the Web API out, then you get more flexibility but you might end up duplicating a lot of config.
My advice is that, if you do, make sure both projects talk to the same base services projects. Partitioning can also make sense if this Web API might be used by third parties.
Related
Any feedback much appreciated.
I need to create a Web API (ASP.NET Core Web API), which does some basic CRUD operations. Thats no issue at all, and I need to create a simple Angular UI for the Web API as well. Thats also no issue. But is there a way to combine both into a single application ? WebAPI mainly and an optional UI part in Angular than having a second angular solution ? I know there is a visual studio project template where you create a .NET Core Angular Application, if I do that, how would I expose the API at the sametime to other clients as API, while still managing the Angular UI ?
Put in another way, my .NET Core application should be primarily a WebAPI which should work independently and act like a WebAPI, while an optional part of it should have an Angular frontend connecting to the WebAPI.
You can view this as a matter of security for your WebAPI and how you expose connections to it. You can serve your API endpoints under one route, i.e. /api and you Angular application at you site route or host it elsewhere.
If you follow the same practices for exposing the WebAPI cross origin, then your Angular application can consume the API in exactly the same way as any other client would.
Followed #johnny's comment and it works !
All you have to do is compile your angular project and put it under wwwroot. Then you can navigate to your index.html page, set your webapi startup to serve static files and your done
For my AngularJS web application I use Azure Service Fabric as my backend. For that I created a stateless web api service.
Do I have to put the frontend /client-side AngularJS code in the same application type or the same stateless service? Is it useful to create another stateless service for the web ui?
As others have mentioned, you can host your Angular web app anywhere you like; there are no restrictions imposed by Service Fabric in this regard.
That said, in your case a simple solution is to have your front-end web app and your web api in the same stateless service. Basically you treat this as a regular old ASP.NET MVC application, and ASP.NET MVC makes it fairly easy to have an API and web UI in the same MVC project. Here are a couple examples of this:
ASP.NET 5 MVC application with an API and a UI: https://github.com/Azure-Samples/service-fabric-dotnet-getting-started/tree/master/Services/Chatter
Single-page jQuery app with an API self-hosted with Katana: https://github.com/Azure-Samples/service-fabric-dotnet-management-party-cluster/tree/master/PartyCluster
As to the question of why do you need Service Fabric to host a front-end file. There are trade-offs here. Assuming the front-end is a web application that's meant to be part of a larger Service Fabric application - as it is in your case - it's nice to have everything in one place using one set of tools on the same SDK with the same deployment process hosted on the same cluster, rather than having a completely separate process, tools, SDK, and hosting environment for one part of your application. You also get all the Service Fabric goodness like rolling upgrades, health monitoring, high availability and auto failover, etc. The downside is that you don't get the super easy-to-use tools for web applications that come with, say, Azure App Service.
I'm building a Web API to access my database. I would like to create a Single Page Application Website first then a iPhone, Android and Windows application. Classic.
My data and business layer are already finished.
First I decided to build a Json WCF Webservice. In Visual Studio I created a WCF Service Application. I modified the Web.config file to accept Json requests and implemented my interface and svc file.
After that I discovered ASP.NET Web Application with the Web API template. So I decided to change and to create a real web API with this full website structure.
Now I'm lost. What are the differences between these two possibilities to create a Web API?
A comparative from microsoft : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj823172(v=vs.110).aspx
Personnaly, I prefer WCF because the datacontracts are generated in the case of SOAP Web Services with WSDL files.
The Web API project is already completely written and it uses User.Identity. There's also an MVC site that uses SimpleMembership. Is it possible to make both projects make use of the same user data for registration and authorization?
I am new to ASP.NET MVC and Web API and trying to get the basics. AFAIK, we have project templates in VS 2013, named as MVC, Web API and Both of them together.
I have gone through the tutorials and learned that we can make an API by using MVC alone as well as with Web API Template.
So, What are the differences between these, based on Architecture and Usage?
Basically, a Web API controller is an MVC controller, which uses HttpMessageResponse as the base type of its response, instead of ActionResponse. They are the same in most other respects. The main difference between the project types is that the MVC Application project type adds web specific things like default CSS, JavaScript files and other resources needed for a web site, which are not needed for an API.
MVC is used for creating web sites. In this case Controllers usually return a View (i.e. HTML response) to browser requests. Web APIs on the other hand are usually made to be consumed by other applications. If you want to allow other applications to access your data / functionality, you can create a Web API to facilitate this access. For example, Facebook has an API in order to allow App developers to access information about users using the App. Web APIs don't have to be for public consumption. You can also create an API to support your own applications. For example, we created a Web API to support the AJAX functionality of our MVC web site.
Microsoft changed the way they present the different templates. Now instead of using different templates for different project types, they encourage developers to mix ASP.NET technologies inside the same project as needed. Microsoft calls this vNext.
UPDATE: For ASP.NET Core, Web API has been integrated into the MVC 6 project type and the ApiController class is consolidated into the Controller class. Further details at: https://wildermuth.com/2016/05/10/Writing-API-Controllers-in-ASP-NET-MVC-6
My two cents...
In ASP.Net MVC – the MVC’s Controller decides what should be the View - i.e., the controller decides what the user should “see” (based on the current scenario or context), when they make a request.
In ASP.Net Web Forms, the ASPX pages decides what the user should “see” when they make a request.
But in Web API, there is no control/power to any of the Web API’s features to decide what the user should “see” when they make a request.
Web API is NOT a technology tied up with websites only. It can be used for multiple purposes – not only websites. So it doesn't know the meaning of rendering
Further Reading
Planning Web Solutions Today: Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC, Web API, and OWIN.
WCF or ASP.NET Web APIs? My two cents on the subject
The Next Generation of .NET – ASP.NET vNext
Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC 6
MVC controller derived from controller class. In Mvc you can returns views. Mvc achitecture uses to create an application. However Web apis are used to provide data to various application.
Web Api drives from Api controller and it doesn't return view.
Note: You can also create Web Api from MVC controller but you need to return result as JsonResult or other web api supported return types.
In addition to answers already provided here, its worth noting any controller which inherits from ApiController and having an action with Http verb POST can only have one [FromBody] input parameter. If using a MVC controller (deriving from 'Controller') you can have many post input parameters.