Sending Commands from an MVC4 site to Another - asp.net-mvc-4

Question

I have two sites: one of them controls the other sending some commands through Web API. The idea is: the action of the controller site sends a command to the other site, gets the response and perform some business rules, without redirecting to the other site.
I have tons of examples explaining how to implement this via jQuery, but I want to make the controller post the data to the other site, instead of the view.
I found an approach at this answer: How to use System.Net.HttpClient to post a complex type?, but I want the answer for an JSON approach.
Can someone post a simple example using JSON showing how to do this?

Answer 1

As I didn't find a brief answer to my question, I'll post the solution I've made.
As the method uses an HttpClient method that requires async statements, the action below was implemented retuning a Task<ActionResult>. Another modification is if you're saving an object in context.
Instead of using:
context.SaveChanges();
You'll have to use:
await context.SaveChangesAsync();
The code below implements an Action from an ASP.NET MVC4 Controller:
[HttpPost]
public async Task<ActionResult> Create(MyModel model)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
// Logic to save the model.
// I usually reload saved data using something kind of the statement below:
var inserted = context.MyModels
.AsNoTracking()
.Where(m => m.SomeCondition == someVariable)
.SingleOrDefault();
// Send Command.
// APIMyModel is a simple class with public properties.
var apiModel = new APIMyModel();
apiModel.AProperty = inserted.AProperty;
apiModel.AnotherProperty = inserted.AnotherProperty;
DataContractJsonSerializer jsonSer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(APIMyModel));
// use the serializer to write the object to a MemoryStream
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
jsonSer.WriteObject(ms, apiModel);
ms.Position = 0;
//use a Stream reader to construct the StringContent (Json)
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(ms);
// Note if the JSON is simple enough you could ignore the 5 lines above that do the serialization and construct it yourself
// then pass it as the first argument to the StringContent constructor
StringContent theContent = new StringContent(sr.ReadToEnd(), System.Text.Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
HttpClient aClient = new HttpClient();
Uri theUri = new Uri("http://yoursite/api/TheAPIAction");
HttpResponseMessage aResponse = await aClient.PostAsync(theUri, theContent);
if (aResponse.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
// Success Logic. Yay!
}
else
{
// show the response status code
String failureMsg = "HTTP Status: " + aResponse.StatusCode.ToString() + " - Reason: " + aResponse.ReasonPhrase;
}
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
// if Model is not valid, you can put your logic to reload ViewBag properties here.
}