WebAPI to Return XML

Question

I m wanting my WEB API method to return an XML object back to the calling application  Currently it s just returning the XML as a string object  Is this a no no  If so how do you tell the webapi get method that it s returning an object of type XML   Thanks  Edit  An example of the Get method    AcceptVerbs  GET    public HttpResponseMessage Get int tenantID  string dataType  string ActionName       List lt string gt  SQLResult   MyWebSite DataProvidor DB spReturnXMLData               SELECT   FROM vwContactListing FOR XML AUTO  ELEMENTS   ToList       string AllResults          for  int i   0  i  lt  SQLResult Count - 1  i                AllResults    SQLResult i            string sSyncData     lt  xml version   1 0    gt      AllResults      HttpResponseMessage response   new HttpResponseMessage        response Content   new StringContent sSyncData       return response                Its a bit hacky because im still at the prototyping stage  Will refactor when i can prove its doable

User · Answer

You should simply return your object  and shouldn t be concerned about whether its XML or JSON  It is the client responsibility to request JSON or XML from the web api  For example  If you make a call using Internet explorer then the default format requested will be Json and the Web API will return Json   But if you make the request through google chrome  the default request format is XML and you will get XML back    If you make a request using Fiddler then you can specify the  Accept header  to be either Json or XML    Accept  application xml   You may wanna see this article  Content Negotiation in ASP NET MVC4 Web API Beta     Part 1  EDIT  based on your edited question with code   Simple return list of string  instead of converting it to XML  try it using Fiddler    public List lt string gt  Get int tenantID  string dataType  string ActionName               List lt string gt  SQLResult   MyWebSite DataProvidor DB spReturnXMLData  SELECT   FROM vwContactListing FOR XML AUTO  ELEMENTS   ToList           return SQLResult           For example if your list is like    List lt string gt  list   new List lt string gt     list Add  Test1    list Add  Test2    list Add  Test3    return list    and you specify Accept  application xml the output will be    lt ArrayOfstring xmlns i  http   www w3 org 2001 XMLSchema-instance  xmlns  http   schemas microsoft com 2003 10 Serialization Arrays  gt     lt string gt Test1 lt  string gt     lt string gt Test2 lt  string gt     lt string gt Test3 lt  string gt   lt  ArrayOfstring gt    and if you specify  Accept  application json  in the request then the output will be        Test1      Test2      Test3      So let the client request the content type  instead of you sending the customized xml

User · Answer

Here s another way to be compatible with an IHttpActionResult return type  In this case I am asking it to use the XML Serializer optional  instead of Data Contract serializer  I m using return ResponseMessage  so that I get a return compatible with IHttpActionResult   return ResponseMessage new HttpResponseMessage HttpStatusCode OK                      Content   new ObjectContent lt SomeType gt  objectToSerialize                 new System Net Http Formatting XmlMediaTypeFormatter                      UseXmlSerializer   true

User · Answer

If you don t want the controller to decide the return object type  you should set your method return type as System Net Http HttpResponseMessage and use the below code to return the XML    public HttpResponseMessage Authenticate         process the request                 string XML   lt note gt  lt body gt Message content lt  body gt  lt  note gt      return new HttpResponseMessage             Content   new StringContent XML  Encoding UTF8   application xml             This is the quickest way to always return XML from Web API

User · Answer

In my project with netcore 2 2 I use this code    HttpGet   Route   something     public IActionResult GetSomething         string payload    Something        OkObjectResult result   Ok  payload            currently result Formatters is empty but we d like to ensure it will be so in the future     result Formatters Clear            force response as xml     result Formatters Add  new Microsoft AspNetCore Mvc Formatters XmlSerializerOutputFormatter           return result      It forces only one action within a controller to return a xml without effect to other actions  Also this code doesn t contain neither HttpResponseMessage or StringContent or ObjectContent which are disposable objects and hence should be handled appropriately  it is especially a problem if you use any of code analyzers that reminds you about it    Going further you could use a handy extension like this   public static class ObjectResultExtensions       public static T ForceResultAsXml lt T gt   this T result           where T   ObjectResult               result Formatters Clear            result Formatters Add  new Microsoft AspNetCore Mvc Formatters XmlSerializerOutputFormatter               return result            And your code will become like this    HttpGet   Route   something     public IActionResult GetSomething         string payload    Something        return Ok  payload   ForceResultAsXml        In addition  this solution looks like an explicit and clean way to force return as xml and it is easy to add to your existent code   P S  I used fully-qualified name Microsoft AspNetCore Mvc Formatters XmlSerializerOutputFormatter just to avoid ambiguity

User · Answer

If you return a serializable object  WebAPI will automatically send JSON or XML based on the Accept header that your client sends   If you return a string  you ll get a string

[asp.net] WebAPI to Return XML

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