When developing
OData endpoints
in ASP.NET Core
then adding swagger to auto document the api endpoints
the OData endpoint is listed as being both an OData endpoint AND a traditional REST interface.
This could be confusing to service client developers (not knowing when to use which?)
Can one control what is shown/how automatic documentation is developed for OData endpoints?
If so, how?
If you think this is actually not a problem, I'd love to hear your reasoning as to why not.
Thank you!
Related
I have a multi-tiered application with data and application layers.
If I need to use odata, I can implement it with web-api and user can pass parameters but how can web-api can talk to wcf service in this scenario?
Is it possible? Is there a standard solution? Is there a recommended solution from Microsoft?
I tried to search for a good reference, but I couldn't find any samples for how to use OData with web api and WCF together.
I am little confused about these two technologies ie WCF REST and asp.net WEB API. Is there any difference between these two? When should use one over the other?
I am little confused about these two technologies ie WCF REST and asp.net WEB API. Is there any difference between these two?
Yes. Both are a means to providing REST-style services however the competing technologies are not created equal.
WCF REST naturally comes from the WCF world which is originally SOAP. WCF REST changes that by providing a rudimentary JSON payload instead of SOAP. However WCF REST is missing certain features and Microsoft has said that newer REST features will only make its way into ASP.NET Web API.
Unlike WCF REST, ASP.NET Web API has been designed from the ground up for REST-style JSON services.
MSDN:
Although WCF provides some support for writing REST-style services, the support for REST in ASP.NET Web API is more complete and all future REST feature improvements will be made in ASP.NET Web API. If you have an existing WCF service and you want to expose additional REST endpoints, use WCF and the WebHttpBinding. - Tell me more
OP:
When should use one over the other?
If your intent is to create SOAP services, or you have an existing WCF service, use WCF with a JSON encoding endpoint.
If your intent is to create REST services, particularly in a new application, then use ASP.NET Web API.
It depends what you want to do for choose one of them
Basically with the WCF you can create service based applications
but with ASP.NET Web Api you can create Restful services based on Http or Https.
REST and WCF are the meanings from different worlds :) REST is a specification (in other words the set of conventions) for developing the web-services. REST doesn't depends on some special technology / platform / framework or language. WCF is Microsoft approach for web-services, natively predifined to develope SOAP-services, which are based on RPC-architecture. RPC (remote procedure call) is an approach to develope web-services as a set of methods with parameters, which are doing some work. REST is more HTTP-oriented and the main concept is to operate with some entities (Representational State Transfer) and perform actions to this entities, but not just call some methods. It is possible to build some REST-service using WCF technology, but in my opinion, WCF isn't a good way for this goal.
What would be the advantage of using WebAPI over WCF Rest and vice-versa?
If I had to implement a RESTFUL service today, what would be the most preferable method of providing the service?
Simply, because WCF REST is no longer supported. It was there before asp.net offers a decent REST support : It's now the case with Web Api.
One of the main advantage of asp.net Web Api is the similitude with the well known asp.net MVC style programming
WCF was originally created to enable SOAP-based services. WCF REST is a non-trivial mix between two differents worlds : SOAP & REST.
This question is still pertinent when you want to expose service, but for a REST-like api, do not hesitate one second.
I am new to ASP.NET Web API. Can anyone please tell me
Why we need Web API?
How it differs from rest full api from MVC ?
When to use MVC4 web api ?
What is restful api in MVC
WebAPI is based on MVC, but has some subtle differences. You need to understand that WebAPI is a separate thing from MVC, and does not require MVC. You can install WebAPI separately, and you can uninstall it from the default MVC templates.
It's true, MS could have built WebAPI directly into the MVC Controllers, but they chose to keep API Controllers separate from MVC Controllers because they really are different ways of dealing with requests and responses.
Examples of things you can do in WebAPI that you can't (or at least not as easily) in MVC include:
Content Negotiation
This allows the calling client to choose the format that data will be returned in, such as XML or JSON.
OData support
This allows the caller to "filter" results on the server without the service method having to specifically support it. For instance, if you want to sort the results by first name, then this can be done simply by specifying OData query parameters
WebAPI provides a lot of power for dealing with data result sets. MVC does not provide that kind of functionality.
You would tend to use WebAPI for things like Ajax requests, or web service based requests that do not require the complexity of WCF.
RESTful API's are not specific to MVC or WebAPI. They're simply a philosophy for how you design your HTTP requests in a service. There's a lot to it really, but I won't go into it.
WCF team merged at Microsoft with MVC team. WCF is not going away, but for simple RESTFUL service call, the MVC Controller were a match made in heaven, and the modification to it allowed for a very easy Web API.
While many of us feel WCF is relatively easy, there are many who fear it and/or don't have/take time to learn it, thus they a. still use ASMX, b. still never adopted services, or NOW with Web API, are c. Very excited that they can very easily get up and running with restful web services.
So really it is a matter of comfort level, adaptation, ability to change and the Web API does have its place. It cannot replace WCF as WCF has advanced configurations with all the bindings and ability to do SOAP and not just REST, which many applications still NEED to have SOAP protocol.
MVC is optimized to serve information to a web browser client. If your client is something else, Web API will make your life easier over the long term.
Web API is a from the ground up re-write of the web stack. At the core it is much cleaner and more flexible than the 12 year old infrastructure that MVC is built on top of. Web API does not yet have the same level of tooling, add-ons, plugins as MVC, but that will come.
What are the pros and cons of using each technology?
WCF Web Api is now merged into Asp.net
Asp.net web api now supports self hosting.
I still imagine if I want to expose multiple protocol schemas for the same operation I would still lean towards WCF or can Mvc end point do this too?
Also does the new Asp.Net web api expose Wsdl? If not how would the client figure out what operation is available to them?
Arguably the best feature of Mvc is the modelbinder. How robust is the WCF equivalent?
So can someone tell me what advantage does the Asp.net web api bring to the table? WCF seems overwhelmingly the more powerful/scalable choice, imo. About the only thing the Mvc Web Api has over the WCF model is probably ease of development, but that means squat if it ends up being a serious design limitation down the road.
First, I suggest you read my post on the subject:
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/idof/archive/2012/03/05/wcf-or-asp-net-web-apis-my-two-cents-on-the-subject.aspx
Regarding your WSDL question - since the WebApi does not use SOAP, it does not require a WSDL, and does not export one. You can use Hypermedia to return resources with a list of possible activity URLs (think of it as a self-describing resource)
The choice depends on what we want to do.
ASP.NET Web API is a framework for building non-SOAP based services over HTTP only - so there aren't more transport protocols available using this framework.
WCF / Windows Communication Foundation is a framework for exchanging SOAP-based messages - here we use a lot of transport protocols: HTTP, TCP, Named pipes, MSMQ, etc...
I am not sure about which one has better performance regarding the amount of data, maybe WCF since we can use low protocols. Any comments are appreciated.
The WCF Web API primarily focuses on REST implementations. If you are setting up a REST implementation, the standard WCF bits are a bit of a pain in the rear. If you are setting up RESTful services, you will find the WCF Web API a much nicer experience. If you are setting up SOAP services, then the WCF Web API is not your best friend, and you are better off using WCF for your services.
Use WCF for intranet/B2B sites n Web API for B2C/C2C/internet sites...SOAP/XML is still the standard for intra-businesses communication n it's not going to go away!!!