Web API form-urlencoded binding to different property names

Question

I am expecting a POST request with content type set to:

Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Request body looks like this:

first_name=john&last_name=banana

My action on controller has this signature:

[HttpPost]
public HttpResponseMessage Save(Actor actor)
{
    ....
}

Where Actor class is given as:

public class Actor
{
public string FirstName {get;set;}
public string LastName {get;set;}
}

Is there a way to force Web API to bind:

first_name => FirstName
last_name => LastName

I know how to do it with requests with content type set to application/json, but not with urlencoded.

LostInComputer · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-11T10:15:26.313

I'm 98% certain (I looked the source code) that WebAPI doesn't support it.

If you really need to support different property names, you can either:

Add additional properties to the Actor class which serves as alias.
Create your own model binder.

Here is a simple model binder:

public sealed class ActorDtoModelBinder : IModelBinder
{
    public bool BindModel(HttpActionContext actionContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
    {
        var actor = new Actor();

        var firstNameValueResult = bindingContext.ValueProvider.GetValue(CreateFullPropertyName(bindingContext, "First_Name"));
        if(firstNameValueResult != null) {
            actor.FirstName = firstNameValueResult.AttemptedValue;
        }

        var lastNameValueResult = bindingContext.ValueProvider.GetValue(CreateFullPropertyName(bindingContext, "Last_Name"));
        if(lastNameValueResult != null) {
            actor.LastName = lastNameValueResult.AttemptedValue;
        }

        bindingContext.Model = actor;

        bindingContext.ValidationNode.ValidateAllProperties = true;

        return true;
    }

    private string CreateFullPropertyName(ModelBindingContext bindingContext, string propertyName)
    {
        if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(bindingContext.ModelName))
        {
            return propertyName;
        }
        return bindingContext.ModelName + "." + propertyName;
    }
}

If you are up for the challenge, you can try to create a generic model binder.

Although this is very class-specific solution, meaning I'd have to implement this for each class and not create generalized approach, I'll accept this as answer for your effort. If you however come up with better approach that can be reusable, please post it :) — Admir Tuzović, Feb 14 '14 at 05:03
I looked at the WebAPI source code previously and found that creating a reusable version will take a lot of effort — LostInComputer, Feb 14 '14 at 05:19

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

0

It's an old post but maybe this could helps other people. Here is a solution with an AliasAttribute and the associated ModelBinder

It could be used like this :

[ModelBinder(typeof(AliasBinder))]
public class MyModel
{
    [Alias("state")]
    public string Status { get; set; }
}

Don't hesitate to comment my code :)

Every Idea / comment is welcome.

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

1
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answered Feb 13 '17 at 12:04

Toine Seiter

427
4
20

Are you sure this works for web api model binding.I think this is specific to MVC. Pls correct me if I am wrong as I am need for a solution to this problem but dont think this solution can work for web api – Jags Feb 11 '18 at 10:03

Web API form-urlencoded binding to different property names

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