ASP.NET Web API: Multiple Custom Objects through Query String

Question

I'm working on an API, and I wanted to try and get sort, filter, and pagination objects through my query string in JSON form.

Currently, I'm calling my API with this:

baseUrl/reviews?sort={"direction":"asc","field":"time"}&filters=[{"field":"rating","value":9}]&page={"page":1,"items":10}

And my controller looks like:

namespace NewApi.Controllers
{
    [Route("api/[controller]")]
    [ApiController]
    public class ApiController : ControllerBase
    {
        [HttpGet]
        public JsonResult Search([FromQuery(Name = "sort")] Sort sort, [FromQuery(Name = "Filters")] List<Filter> filters, [FromQuery(Name = "Page")] Page page)
        {
            ... getting data from db be here ..
        }
    }
}

With this, all my parameters are null.

I saw other questions similar to this that talked about custom model binding. I've tried that, but I couldn't get the values from the query string in order to try deserializing the JSON data.

Another workaround answer I saw was to just pass one JSON object and deserialize it in the controller. But I still wasn't able to get any data out of the query string.

Answer 1

What you're trying to do with non-primitive objects has to be done using the body of http request. If you want to do it in a query string stick to primitives.

baseUrl/reviews?sortDirection=asc&sortField=time&filterField=rating&filterValue=9&page=1&items=10


[Route("api/[controller]")]
[ApiController]
public class ApiController : ControllerBase
{
    [HttpGet]
    public JsonResult Search(string sortDirection, string sortField, string filterField, string filterValue, int page, int items)
    // I would also recommend returning IHttpActionResult, much more robust
    {
        ... getting data from db be here ..
    }
}