I'm working on a new OData project, and am trying to do it with Web API 2 for the first time. The OData feed was pretty simple to put in place, which was great in comparison to WCF.
The problem I have now is that my OData feed will be used in a "multi-tenant" environment and I would like to use "friendly" URLs for the feed depending on the tenant. Therefore, I would ideally need the feed URLs to look like this:
/store/tenant1/Products
/store/tenant2/Products
Both URLs are pointing to the same controller and ultimately the same dataset, but I would like to enforce some entity filtering based on the tenant. Apparently this is going to be difficult and somewhat different to standard Web API routing since I can only specify a route prefix and not a route template.
So far, I've modified my OData controller to take the tenant name as a parameter and this works great when hitting the following url (which is not exactly what I want, see target above):
http://mydomainname/odata/Products?tenantName=test
Using this route definition:
ODataConventionModelBuilder modelBuilder = new ODataConventionModelBuilder();
modelBuilder.EntitySet<Product>("Products");
IEdmModel model = modelBuilder.GetEdmModel();
config.Routes.MapODataRoute(routeName: "OData", routePrefix: "odata", model: model);
And this is the sample action on my controller:
[Queryable]
public IQueryable<Product> GetPproducts(string tenantName)
{
return _products.Where(p=>p.TenantName == tenantName);
}
I'm not quite sure if this is possible and my last resort will be to use URL rewrite rules, but I'd rather avoid this and have everything in code, done the right way.
Thanks a lot for your help!
After some investigation I found it works in this way: Just apply the route prefix name to the query, for example:
public class MoviesController : ODataController
{
private MoviesContext _db = new MoviesContext();
public IHttpActionResult Get()
{
var routeName=Request.ODataProperties().RouteName;
ODataRoute odataRoute=Configuration.Routes[routeName] as ODataRoute;
var prefixName = odataRoute.RoutePrefix;
return Ok(_db.Movies.Where(m=>m.Title.StartsWith(prefixName)));
}
// Other methods here
}
Note: The above code is based on ODataActionsSample in https://aspnet.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest#Samples/WebApi/OData/v4/
Now OData v4 has become a standard of OASIS, but v3 is not, so v4 seems a good start point.
Related
This is an example of what I want to achieve, however I want to do my own custom attribute that also feeds itself from something other than the request url. In the case of HttpGet/HttpPost these built-in attributes obviously have to look at the http request method, but is there truly no way to make Url.Action() resolve the correct url then?
[HttpGet("mygeturl")]
[HttpPost("myposturl")]
public ActionResult IndexAsync()
{
// correct result: I get '/mygeturl' back
var getUrl = Url.Action("Index");
// wrong result: It adds a ?method=POST query param instead of returning '/myposturl'
var postUrl = Url.Action("Index", new { method = "POST" });
return View();
}
I've looked at the aspnet core source code and I truly can't find a feature that would work here. All the LinkGenerator source code seems to require routedata values but routedata always seems to require to be in the url somewhere, either in the path or in the query string. But even if I add the routedata value programmatically, it won't be in time for the action selection or the linkgenerator doesn't care.
In theory what I need is to pass something to the UrlHelper/LinkGenerator and have it understand that I want the url back out that I defined in my custom attribute, in this case the HttpPost (but I'll make my own attribute).
In ASP.Net Core you have multiple ways to generate an URL for controller action, the newest being tag helpers.
Using tag-helpers for GET-requests asp-route is used to specify route parameters. It is from what I understand not supported to use complex objects in route request. And sometimes a page could have many different links pointing to itself, possible with minor addition to the URL for each link.
To me it seems wrong that any modification to controller action signature requires changing all tag-helpers using that action. I.e. if one adds string query to controller, one must add query to model and add asp-route-query="#Model.Query" 20 different places spread across cshtml-files. Using this approach is setting the code up for future bugs.
Is there a more elegant way of handling this? For example some way of having a Request object? (I.e. request object from controller can be put into Model and fed back into action URL.)
In my other answer I found a way to provide request object through Model.
From the SO article #tseng provided I found a smaller solution. This one does not use a request object in Model, but retains all route parameters unless explicitly overridden. It won't allow you to specify route through an request object, which is most often not what you want anyway. But it solved problem in OP.
<a asp-controller="Test" asp-action="HelloWorld" asp-all-route-data="#Context.GetQueryParameters()" asp-route-somestring="optional override">Link</a>
This requires an extension method to convert query parameters into a dictionary.
public static Dictionary GetQueryParameters(this HttpContext context)
{
return context.Request.Query.ToDictionary(d => d.Key, d => d.Value.ToString());
}
There's a rationale here that I don't think you're getting. GET requests are intentionally simplistic. They are supposed to describe a specific resource. They do no have bodies, because you're not supposed to be passing complex data objects in the first place. That's not how the HTTP protocol is designed.
Additionally, query string params should generally be optional. If some bit of data is required in order to identify the resource, it should be part of the main URI (i.e. the path). As such, neglecting to add something like a query param, should simply result in the full data set being returned instead of some subset defined by the query. Or in the case of something like a search page, it generally will result in a form being presented to the user to collect the query. In other words, you action should account for that param being missing and handle that situation accordingly.
Long and short, no, there is no way "elegant" way to handle this, I suppose, but the reason for that is that there doesn't need to be. If you're designing your routes and actions correctly, it's generally not an issue.
To solve this I'd like to have a request object used as route parameters for anchor TagHelper. This means that all route links are defined in only one location, not throughout solution. Changes made to request object model automatically propagates to URL for <a asp-action>-tags.
The benefit of this is reducing number of places in the code we need to change when changing method signature for a controller action. We localize change to model and action only.
I thought writing a tag-helper for a custom asp-object-route could help. I looked into chaining Taghelpers so mine could run before AnchorTagHelper, but that does not work. Creating instance and nesting them requires me to hardcode all properties of ASP.Net Cores AnchorTagHelper, which may require maintenance in the future. Also considered using a custom method with UrlHelper to build URL, but then TagHelper would not work.
The solution I landed on is to use asp-all-route-data as suggested by #kirk-larkin along with an extension method for serializing to Dictionary. Any asp-all-route-* will override values in asp-all-route-data.
<a asp-controller="Test" asp-action="HelloWorld" asp-all-route-data="#Model.RouteParameters.ToDictionary()" asp-route-somestring="optional override">Link</a>
ASP.Net Core can deserialize complex objects (including lists and child objects).
public IActionResult HelloWorld(HelloWorldRequest request) { }
In the request object (when used) would typically have only a few simple properties. But I thought it would be nice if it supported child objects as well. Serializing object into a Dictionary is usually done using reflection, which can be slow. I figured Newtonsoft.Json would be more optimized than writing simple reflection code myself, and found this implementation ready to go:
public static class ExtensionMethods
{
public static IDictionary ToDictionary(this object metaToken)
{
// From https://geeklearning.io/serialize-an-object-to-an-url-encoded-string-in-csharp/
if (metaToken == null)
{
return null;
}
JToken token = metaToken as JToken;
if (token == null)
{
return ToDictionary(JObject.FromObject(metaToken));
}
if (token.HasValues)
{
var contentData = new Dictionary();
foreach (var child in token.Children().ToList())
{
var childContent = child.ToDictionary();
if (childContent != null)
{
contentData = contentData.Concat(childContent)
.ToDictionary(k => k.Key, v => v.Value);
}
}
return contentData;
}
var jValue = token as JValue;
if (jValue?.Value == null)
{
return null;
}
var value = jValue?.Type == JTokenType.Date ?
jValue?.ToString("o", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) :
jValue?.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
return new Dictionary { { token.Path, value } };
}
}
I'm whondering, wheather there is an easy way to pupolate doctrine entities from request objects. I'm building a RESTful API with fos/rest-bundle, so I dont need forms.
Do you know a good way to do this, in a very easy and short way?
// POST /api/products
public function postProductsAction(Request $request)
{
$product = new Product();
}
In addition, I'm whondering wheather its possible to inject instances of entities directly in the controller with post requests.
// PUT /api/product/1
// I need this functionality for post requests too
public function putProductAction(Product $product)
{
return $product; // { "id" : "1", "name" : "foo" }
}
Greetings,
--marc
What you need is the most common goal of every REST API. And the best way to do this is to use a serializer, in addition to forms (even if you would prefere to not use forms).
I advise you to read for example this tutorial writen by William Durand. It explains every points very well and uses the JMSSerializerBundle to convert entities through the API.
Laravel 4: In the context of consume-your-own-api, my XyzController uses my custom InternalAPiDispatcher class to create a Request object, push it onto a stack (per this consideration), then dispatch the Route:
class InternalApiDispatcher {
// ...
public function dispatch($resource, $method)
{
$this->request = \Request::create($this->apiBaseUrl . '/' . $resource, $method);
$this->addRequestToStack($this->request);
return \Route::dispatch($this->request);
}
To start with, I'm working on a basic GET for a collection, and would like the Response content to be in the format of an Eloquent model, or whatever is ready to be passed to a View (perhaps a repository thingy later on when I get more advanced). It seems inefficient to have the framework create a json response and then I decode it back into something else to display it in a view. What is a simple/efficient/elegant way to direct the Request to return the Response in the format I desire wherever I am in my code?
Also, I've looked at this post a lot, and although I'm handling query string stuff in the BaseContorller (thanks to this answer to my previous question) it all seems to be getting far too convoluted and I feel I'm getting lost in the trees.
EDIT: could the following be relevant (from laravel.com/docs/templates)?
"By specifying the layout property on the controller, the view specified will be created for you and will be the assumed response that should be returned from actions."
Feel free to mark this as OT if you like, but I'm going to suggest that you might want to reconsider your problem in a different light.
If you are "consuming your own API", which is delivered over HTTP, then you should stick to that method of consumption.
For all that it might seem weird, the upside is that you could actually replace that part of your application with some other server altogether. You could run different parts of your app on different boxes, you could rewrite the HTTP part completely, etc, etc. All the benefits of "web scale".
The route you're going down is coupling the publisher and the subscriber. Now, since they are both you, or more accurately your single app, this is not necessarily a bad thing. But if you want the benefits of being able to access your own "stuff" without resorting to HTTP (or at least "HTTP-like") requests, then I wouldn't bother with faking it. You'd be better off defining a different internal non-web Service API, and calling that.
This Service could be the basis of your "web api", and in fact the whole HTTP part could probably be a fairly thin controller layer on top of the core service.
It's not a million miles away from where you are now, but instead of taking something that is meant to output HTTP requests and mangling it, make something that can output objects, and wrap that for HTTP.
Here is how I solved the problem so that there is no json encoding or decoding on an internal request to my API. This solution also demonstrates use of route model binding on the API layer, and use of a repository by the API layer as well. This is all working nicely for me.
Routes:
Route::get('user/{id}/thing', array(
'uses' => 'path\to\Namespace\UserController#thing',
'as' => 'user.thing'));
//...
Route::group(['prefix' => 'api/v1'], function()
{
Route::model('thing', 'Namespace\Thing');
Route::model('user', 'Namespace\User');
Route::get('user/{user}/thing', [
'uses' => 'path\to\api\Namespace\UserController#thing',
'as' => 'api.user.thing']);
//...
Controllers:
UI: UserController#thing
public function thing()
{
$data = $this->dispatcher->dispatch('GET', “api/v1/user/1/thing”)
->getOriginalContent(); // dispatcher also sets config flag...
// use $data in a view;
}
API: UserController#thing
public function thing($user)
{
$rspns = $this->repo->thing($user);
if ($this->isInternalCall()) { // refs config flag
return $rspns;
}
return Response::json([
'error' => false,
'thing' => $rspns->toArray()
], 200);
Repo:
public function thing($user)
{
return $user->thing;
}
Here is how I achieved it in Laravel 5.1. It requires some fundamental changes to the controllers to work.
Instead of outputting response with return response()->make($data), do return $data.
This allows the controller methods to be called from other controllers with App::make('apicontroller')->methodname(). The return will be object/array and not a JSON.
To do processing for the external API, your existing routing stays the same. You probably need a middleware to do some massaging to the response. Here is a basic example that camel cases key names for the JSON.
<?php
namespace App\Http\Middleware;
use Closure;
class ResponseFormer
{
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
$response = $next($request);
if($response->headers->get('content-type') == 'application/json')
{
if (is_array($response->original)) {
$response->setContent(camelCaseKeys($response->original));
}
else if (is_object($response->original)) {
//laravel orm returns objects, it is a huge time saver to handle the case here
$response->setContent(camelCaseKeys($response->original->toArray()));
}
}
return $response;
}
}
I am currently working on an Umbraco MVC 4 project version 6.0.5. The project currently uses Vega.USiteBuilder to build the appropriate document types in the backoffice based on strongly typed classes with mapping attributes. Consequently, all my razor files inherit from UmbracoTemplatePageBase
I am coming across a road block trying to invoke a HTTP GET from a razor file. For example a search form with multiple fields to submit to a controller action method, using a SurfaceController using Html.BeginUmbracoForm.
My Html.BeginUmbracoForm looks like this
#using (Html.BeginUmbracoForm("FindTyres", "TyreSearch"))
{
// Couple of filter fields
}
I basically have a scenario where I will like to retrieve some records from an external database outside of Umbraco (external to Umbraco Database) and return the results in a custom view model back to my Umbraco front end view. Once my controller and action method is setup to inherit from SurfaceController and thereafter compiling it and submitting the search, I get a 404 resource cannot be found where the requested url specified: /umbraco.RenderMVC.
Here is my code snippet:
public ActionResult FindTyres(string maker, string years, string models, string vehicles)
{
var tyreBdl = new Wheels.BDL.TyreBDL();
List<Tyre> tyres = tyreBdl.GetAllTyres();
tyres = tyres.Where(t => string.Equals(t.Maker, maker, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)
&& string.Equals(t.Year, years, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)
&& string.Equals(t.Model, models, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)
&& string.Equals(t.Version, vehicles, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)).ToList();
var tyreSearchViewModel = new TyreSearchViewModel
{
Tyres = tyres
};
ViewBag.TyreSearchViewModel = tyreSearchViewModel;
return CurrentUmbracoPage();
}
I then resort to using standard MVC, Html.BeginForm (the only difference). Repeating the steps above and submitting the search, I get the following YSOD error.
Can only use UmbracoPageResult in the context of an Http POST when
using a SurfaceController form
Below is a snippet of the HTML BeginForm
#using (Html.BeginForm("FindTyres", "TyreSearch"))
{
// Couple of filter fields
}
I feel like I am fighting the Umbraco routes to get my controller to return a custom model back to the razor file. I have googled alot trying to figure out how to do a basic search to return a custom model back to my Umbraco front end view till the extent that I tried to create a custom route but that too did not work for me.
Does my controller need to inherit from a special umbraco controller class to return the custom model back? I will basically like to invoke a HTTP GET request (which is a must) so that my criteria search fields are reflected properly in the query strings of the url. For example upon hitting the search button, I must see the example url in my address browser bar
http://[domainname]/selecttyres.aspx/TyresSearch/FindTyresMake=ASIA&Years=1994&Models=ROCSTA&Vehicles=261
Therefore, I cannot use Surface Controller as that will operate in the context of a HTTP Post.
Are there good resource materials that I can read up more on umbraco controllers, routes and pipeline.
I hope this scenario makes sense to you. If you have any questions, please let me know. I will need to understand this concept to continue on from here with my project and I do have a deadline.
There are a lot of questions about this and the best place to look for an authoritative approach is the Umbraco MVC documentation.
However, yes you will find, if you use Html.BeginUmbracoForm(...) you will be forced into a HttpPost action. With this kind of functionality (a search form), I usually build the form manually with a GET method and have it submit a querystring to a specific node URL.
<form action="#Model.Content.Url"> ... </form>
On that page I include an #Html.Action("SearchResults", "TyresSearch") which itself has a model that maps to the keys in the querystring:
[ChildAction]
public ActionResult(TyreSearchModel model){
// Find results
TyreSearchResultModel results = new Wheels.BDL.TyreBDL().GetAllTyres();
// Filter results based on submitted model
...
// Return results
return results;
}
The results view just need to have a model of TyreSearchResultModel (or whatever you choose).
This approach bypasses the need for Umbraco's Controller implementation and very straightforward.
I have managed to find my solution through route hijacking which enabled me to return a custom view model back to my view and work with HTTP GET. It worked well for me.
Digby, your solution looks plausible but I have not attempted at it. If I do have a widget sitting on my page, I will definitely attempt to use your approach.
Here are the details. I basically override the Umbraco default MVC routing by creating a controller that derived from RenderMvcController. In a nutshell, you implement route hijacking by implementing a controller that derives from RenderMvcController and renaming your controllername after your given documenttype name. Recommend the read right out of the Umbraco reference (http://our.umbraco.org/documentation/Reference/Mvc/custom-controllers) This is also a great article (http://www.ben-morris.com/using-umbraco-6-to-create-an-asp-net-mvc-4-web-applicatio)
Here is my snippet of my code:
public class ProductTyreSelectorController : Umbraco.Web.Mvc.RenderMvcController
{
public override ActionResult Index(RenderModel model)
{
var productTyreSelectorViewModel = new ProductTyreSelectorViewModel(model);
var maker = Request.QueryString["Make"];
var years = Request.QueryString["Years"];
var models = Request.QueryString["Models"];
var autoIdStr = Request.QueryString["Vehicles"];
var width = Request.QueryString["Widths"];
var aspectRatio = Request.QueryString["AspectRatio"];
var rims = Request.QueryString["Rims"];
var tyrePlusBdl = new TPWheelBDL.TyrePlusBDL();
List<Tyre> tyres = tyrePlusBdl.GetAllTyres();
if (Request.QueryString.Count == 0)
{
return CurrentTemplate(productTyreSelectorViewModel);
}
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(maker) && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(years) && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(models) &&
!string.IsNullOrEmpty(autoIdStr))
{
int autoId;
int.TryParse(autoIdStr, out autoId);
tyres = tyres.Where(t => string.Equals(t.Maker, maker, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) &&
string.Equals(t.Year, years, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) &&
string.Equals(t.Model, models, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) &&
t.AutoID == autoId)
.ToList();
productTyreSelectorViewModel.Tyres = tyres;
}
else if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(width) && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(aspectRatio) && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(rims))
{
tyres = tyres.Where(t => string.Equals(t.Aspect, aspectRatio, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) &&
string.Equals(t.Rim, rims, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)).ToList();
productTyreSelectorViewModel.Tyres = tyres;
}
var template = ControllerContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString();
//return an empty content result if the template doesn't physically
//exist on the file system
if (!EnsurePhsyicalViewExists(template))
{
return Content("Could not find physical view template.");
}
return CurrentTemplate(productTyreSelectorViewModel);
}
}
Note my ProductTyreSelectorViewModel must inherit from RenderModel for this to work and my document type is called ProductTyreSelector. This way when my model is returned with the action result CurrentTemplate, the Umbraco context of the page is retained and my page is rendered appropriately again. This way, all my query strings will show all my search/filter fields which is what I want.
Here is my snippet of the ProductTyreSelectorViewModel class:
public class ProductTyreSelectorViewModel : RenderModel
{
public ProductTyreSelectorViewModel(RenderModel model)
: base(model.Content, model.CurrentCulture)
{
Tyres = new List<Tyre>();
}
public ProductTyreSelectorViewModel(IPublishedContent content, CultureInfo culture)
: base(content, culture)
{
}
public ProductTyreSelectorViewModel(IPublishedContent content)
: base(content)
{
}
public IList<Tyre> Tyres { get; set; }
}
This approach will work well perhaps with one to two HTTP GET forms on a given page. If there are multiple forms within in a page, then a good solution will may be to use ChildAction approach. Something I will experiment with further.
Hope this helps!