Return a JSON string explicitly from Asp.net WEBAPI?
In Some cases I have NewtonSoft JSON.NET and in my controller I just return the Jobject from my controller and all is good.
But I have a case where I get some raw JSON from another service and need to return it from my webAPI. In this context I can't use NewtonSOft, but if I could then I'd create a JOBJECT from the string (which seems like unneeded processing overhead) and return that and all would be well with the world.
However, I want to return this simply, but if I return the string, then the client receives a JSON wrapper with my context as an encoded string.
How can I explicitly return a JSON from my WebAPI controller method?
There are a few alternatives. The simplest one is to have your method return a HttpResponseMessage
, and create that response with a StringContent
based on your string, something similar to the code below:
public HttpResponseMessage Get()
{
string yourJson = GetJsonFromSomewhere();
var response = this.Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
response.Content = new StringContent(yourJson, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
return response;
}
And checking null or empty JSON string
public HttpResponseMessage Get()
{
string yourJson = GetJsonFromSomewhere();
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(yourJson))
{
var response = this.Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
response.Content = new StringContent(yourJson, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
return response;
}
throw new HttpResponseException(HttpStatusCode.NotFound);
}
Here is @carlosfigueira's solution adapted to use the IHttpActionResult Interface that was introduced with WebApi2:
public IHttpActionResult Get()
{
string yourJson = GetJsonFromSomewhere();
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(yourJson)){
return NotFound();
}
var response = this.Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
response.Content = new StringContent(yourJson, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
return ResponseMessage(response);
}