returning total count of records

Question

I am using WCF rest service and i want to return total record count just as we have inlinecount in webapi or breeze.

My method in WCF is

   [WebGet(UriTemplate = "GiveMeNamesOfStudents", ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]
    public List<MyDataClass> GiveMeNamesOfStudentsList()
    {
        var returnData = (from myentity in myEntityRepository.AsQueryable()
                          select new MyDataClass
                            {
                                Id = myentity.Id,
                                Name = myentity.Name
                            }).Skip(PageSize * PageNo).Take(PageSize).ToList();
        return returnData;
    }

How can i return total record count of my actual data together with data?

Answer 1

I suggest to return a DTO containing your list and the total count.

You can add other informations like the page count for example but i will keep it simple here.

First create your generic DTO so you can use it in other methods too.

 public class ListResult<T>
 {
     public List<T> Data { get; set; }
     public int TotalCount { get; set; }
     public int Page{ get; set; }
 }

Now return the object

[WebGet(UriTemplate = "GiveMeNamesOfStudents", ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]
public ListResult<MyDataClass> GiveMeNamesOfStudentsList()
{
    var returnData = (from myentity in myEntityRepository.AsQueryable()
                      select new MyDataClass
                        {
                            Id = myentity.Id,
                            Name = myentity.Name
                        }).Skip(PageSize * PageNo).Take(PageSize).ToList();

    return new ListResult<MyDataClass> 
                        { 
                             Data = returnData, 
                             TotalCount = myEntityRepository.Count(), 
                             Page = PageNo 
                        };
}