Asp.net web api routing to be like mvc site

Question

How can I add a route so that my controllers will work similar to a mvc web appliation.

Because the default way that they have configured the routes will end up with you having so many controllers.

I just want to have a controller called Auth,

and then in my web API be able to call api/auth/login or api/auth/logout etc. Because with the default routing I will have to create a controller for login and one for logout.

So then I would have my Controller like so:

public class AuthController : ApiController
{
 [HttpPost]
 public IEnumerable<string> Login()
 {
 return new string[] { "value1", "value2" };
 }
 [HttpGet]
 public HttpMessageHandler Logout()
 {
 return new HttpMessageHandler.
 }
}

Answer 1

The default Web API route uses the http method to determine the action to select. For example POST api/auth would look for an action named Post on AuthController.

If you want to use RPC style routing (like MVC) you need to change the default route to:

 public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
 {
 config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
 name: "DefaultApi",
 routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
 defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
 );
 }

Now POST api/auth/login will look for an action named Login on AuthController.

• Zapnologica: Then do i just specify the Get, POST, etc as a filter type as in mvc?
• Ben Foster: You can't do HTTP method based routing in MVC, you have to specify the action name. You use the [HttpGet/HttpPost] filters to constrain the type of requests that the Action can handle not whether it will actually match the route.
• Zapnologica: So then How do I specify in the controller if it will be a get or Post? see my edit
• Zapnologica: Ok, but then how would I have a controller called login that can service a GET and a POST . Is that possible?
• Ben Foster: Yes, this is the default behaviour or Web API (not what you're asking in your question). Create a new LoginController with actions Get/Post. Please start a new post if your question has changed, rather than changing your current one.