ASP.NET Web Api Routing Customization

Question

I have WebApi controllers that end with the "Api" suffix in their names (For ex: StudentsApiController, InstructorsApiController). I do this to easily differentiate my MVC controllers from WebApi controllers. I want my WebApi routes to look similar to

http://localhost:50009/api/students/5 and not http://localhost:50009/api/studentsapi/5.

Currently to achieve this, I am setting up routes like

routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "GetStudents",
routeTemplate: "api/students/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "StudentsApi", id = RouteParameter.Optional });

routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "GetInstructors",
routeTemplate: "api/instructors/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "InstructorsApi", id = RouteParameter.Optional });

This is turning out to be very cumbersome as I have to add a route for each method in my controllers. I am hoping there should be an easy way to setup route templates that automatically adds the "api" suffix the controller name while processing routes.

Answer 1

I think the extensibility point you're looking for is the controller selector. You can create a class that derives from DefaultHttpControllerSelector and overrides the GetControllerName to strip out the "api" part. You can then register this controller selector on your service's configuration Services.