ASP.NET Core Web API
ASP.NET Core Web API is a framework for building RESTful web services. It allows us to expose data and business logic to the web using HTTP. In this article, we will learn how to:
- Create a web API project
- Add model classes and a database context
- Scaffold a controller with CRUD methods
- Configure routing and URL paths
- Call the web API from a client
- Add authentication and authorization
- Deploy the API
Creating the Project
We can create a Web API project in ASP.NET Core using any of these options:
- Visual Studio
- Visual Studio Code
- Visual Studio for Mac
- .NET CLI
For example, using the .NET CLI we can run:
dotnet new webapi -o TodoApi
cd TodoApi
This will create a new Web API project named TodoApi.
Adding Model Classes
We define model classes to represent the data our API will manage. For example, a TodoItem class:
public class TodoItem
{
public long Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public bool IsComplete { get; set; }
}
Adding a Database Context
We create a database context class that derives from DbContext:
public class TodoContext : DbContext
{
public TodoContext(DbContextOptions<TodoContext> options)
: base(options) { }
public DbSet<TodoItem> TodoItems { get; set; }
}
We then register the context with Dependency Injection in Program.cs:
builder.Services.AddDbContext<TodoContext>(opt =>
opt.UseInMemoryDatabase("TodoList"));
Scaffolding a Controller
We can scaffold a controller with CRUD methods using:
dotnet aspnet-codegenerator controller ...
This will generate a controller class marked with the [ApiController] attribute and methods to GET, POST, PUT and DELETE todo items.
Configuring Routing
We use attribute routing to define the URL paths for our API. For example:
[Route("api/[controller]")]
[ApiController]
public class TodoItemsController : ControllerBase
{
[HttpGet]
public IActionResult Get() { ... }
[HttpGet("{id}")]
public IActionResult Get(int id) { ... }
}
This will map to the URLs:
-
/api/todoitems /api/todoitems/{id}
Calling the API
We can call the API from:
- JavaScript
- Postman
- cURL
- Mobile clients
For example, using cURL:
curl -X GET "https://localhost:5001/api/todoitems"
Authentication and Authorization
We can secure our API using:
- JWT Bearer Tokens
- Azure Active Directory
- OAuth2 / OpenID Connect (using IdentityServer4)
Deploying the API
We can deploy our API to:
- Azure App Service
- AWS Elastic Beanstalk
- Heroku
- Docker
Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.
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