Use Redirect in Web Api Controller (HTTP 302 Found)

Question

For some reason I am having lots of trouble trying to find out how to redirect (HTTP 302 Found) to an absolute URL from within a controller.

I have tried this:

this.Redirect("/assets/images/avatars/profile.jpg");

But I get an exception thrown

Exception thrown: 'System.UriFormatException' in System.dll

Additional information: Invalid URI: The format of the URI could not be determined.

Every other answer I see on here doesn't seem to be available to me. I am using Web API and MVC 5.

• Todd Sprang: stackoverflow.com/questions/11324711/…

Answer 1

With Redirect, you need to send a valid URI. In your case, if you want to return only the relative URI, you must tell it to URI class:

public IHttpActionResult Get()
{
 return Redirect(new Uri("/assets/images/avatars/profile.jpg", UriKind.Relative));
}

Answer 2

In .NET Core 2.1, and probably lower version of .NET Core, you cannot pass in a Uri. So you have to create the Uri and call the .ToString() method.

Like so.

 [HttpGet]
 public IActionResult Get()
 {
 Uri url = new Uri("../Path/To/URI", UriKind.Relative);
 return Redirect(url.ToString());
 }

Answer 3

This is some non sense shortcoming from my viewpoint. The .Net Framework Web Api Redirect method does not support getting an uri path string as a location.

So you have to do as this answer tells.

But rather than doing that every time you have to redirect, it is better to fix that API:

/// <inheritdoc />
protected override RedirectResult Redirect(string location)
{
 // The original version just crash on location not supplying the server name,
 // unless who asked it to please consider the possibility you do not wish to tell
 // it every time you have a redirect to "self" to do.
 return base.Redirect(new Uri(location, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute));
}

I am putting this in my base controller, and so can forget about this shortcoming.