In ASP.Net Web API, the action returned object will be converted to XML or JSON automatically - is there a way to add additional process to the returned object before it gets converted?
What I want to achieve is to wrap returned object into a generic APIResponse (another class) type which has an object Property called Data that will be assigned with whatever the original returned object is.
for example:
public Books[] FindBooks(string keyword)
{
..
return new Books[] {new Book(){Name="ASP.NET"}};
}
This will return JSON of book array by default, however I want to wrap the result into an object called APIResponse, so the returned object becomes:
new APIResponse(){
Data = //the Book[] array return from the action method
}
By doing this, I will be able to keep the freedom of returning normal business objects in Web API however always return the same object type in JSON format when the front-end Ajax requests.
I believe it can be done in a way however I'm not familiar with the Web API life cycle, can any way give some guide on this?
Thank you.
I fixed it by creating a custom MediaTypeFormatter however simply inheriting from JSON formatter which have already got all what I need, here is the very simple code I added, which resolved all issues I have!!!
public class APIResponseMediaFomatter : JsonMediaTypeFormatter
{
public override Task WriteToStreamAsync(Type type, object value, System.IO.Stream writeStream, System.Net.Http.HttpContent content, System.Net.TransportContext transportContext)
{
ResponseMessage wrappedValue = null;
if (type != typeof(ResponseMessage) || (value != null && value.GetType() != typeof(ResponseMessage)))
wrappedValue = new ResponseMessage(value);
return base.WriteToStreamAsync(typeof(ResponseMessage), wrappedValue, writeStream, content, transportContext);
}
}
Cheers!