ActionResult to set HTTP StatusCode .NET Core Api

Question

I'm just attempting to send a 404 response message back from an API call however running into some problems.

I have the following function which returns an ActionResult:

    private static ActionResult StatusResult(HttpStatusCode statusCode, string reason) => new ContentResult
    {
        StatusCode = (int)statusCode,
        Content = $"Status Code: {(int)statusCode} - {statusCode} | {reason}",
        ContentType = "application/json",
    };

and call it like so:

return StatusResult(HttpStatusCode.NotFound, "ID not found.");

It returns back to client, however the StatusCode is still 200, not 404. Is there a simple way to fix this?

Response Example:

Answer 1

This may not work for everyone but in the end I edited the HttpContext object directly and returned that back to the client.

Which gave the correct Status Codes as a response.

context.Response.ContentType = "application / json";
context.Response.StatusCode = (int)statuscode;