POST string to ASP.NET Web Api application - returns null

Question

Im trying to transmit a string from client to ASP.NET MVC4 application.

But I can not receive the string, either it is null or the post method can not be found (404

Answer 1

Darrel is of course right on with his response. One thing to add is that the reason why attempting to bind to a body containing a single token like "hello".

is that it isn’t quite URL form encoded data. By adding “=” in front like this:

=hello

it becomes a URL form encoding of a single key value pair with an empty name and value of “hello”.

However, a better solution is to use application/json when uploading a string:

POST /api/sample HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Host: host:8080
Content-Length: 7

"Hello"

Using HttpClient you can do it as follows:

HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
HttpResponseMessage response = await client.PostAsJsonAsync(_baseAddress + "api/json", "Hello");
string result = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
Console.WriteLine(result);

Henrik