Using POST in Rest with .Net

Question

I have successfully added and used a Get action in my new REST-service in .Net using WCF and the Rest-toolkit. The service is defined like this:

[OperationContract]
[WebGet(UriTemplate = "/{id}")]
Foo GetFooById(string id);

And I call it like this from the client side:

public Foo GetFoo(string id)
{
    var httpClient = new HttpClient("http://127.0.0.1:8000/");
    var response = httpClient.Get("foo/" + id);
    return response.Content.ReadAsDataContract<Foo>();
}

Now I want to add a POST action, but how do you define it, and how do you map the parameters?

Answer 1

I believe you wrap it in XML. It is discussed here (answer provided):

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wcf/thread/00c93f9f-f1f3-4f08-9927-db0e4ed91d2d

Also you need to specify the request Content-Type as application/xml. This is how you would also pass custom classes (the XML representation of those classes).

You define it using the WebInvoke attribute, very similar to how you have doen with the WebGet. However, WebInvoke doesn't use the URL placeholders that you've used in the WebGet.

Answer 2

You need the WebInvoke attribute instead of WebGet:

[OperationContract]
[[WebInvoke(Method = "POST", UriTemplate = "/{id}")]
Foo PutFooById(string id, Foo foo)

Note that "POST" is actually the default method, so it can be omitted if you desire.

Answer 3

In order to POST parameters, you need to serialize it using the DataContractSerializer. e.g,

On server:

[OperationContract]
[WebInvoke(Method="POST",UriTemplate = "/foos")]
void PostFoo(Foo foo) {}

On client:

var foo = new Foo();
var content = HttpContentExtensions.CreateDataContract<Foo>(foo);
var client = new HttpClient("http://example.org/service.svc/foos");
client.Post(content)

Please note, no compiler was involved during the creation of this code, buyer beware.