AspNetCore.Docs/aspnetcore/tutorials/web-api-vsc.md

title	author	description	keywords	ms.author	manager	ms.date	ms.topic	ms.assetid	ms.technology	ms.prod	uid
Create a Web API app on Mac or Linux | Microsoft Docs	rick-anderson	Build a web API with ASP.NET Core MVC and Visual Studio Code	ASP.NET Core, WebAPI, Web API, REST, Mac, Linux	riande	wpickett	03/14/2017	article	830b4bf5-dd14-423e-9f59-764a6f13a8f6	aspnet	asp.net-core	tutorials/web-api-vsc

Create a Web API app on Mac or Linux with Visual Studio Code

By Mike Wasson and Rick Anderson

In this tutorial, you’ll build a simple web API for managing a list of "to-do" items. You won’t build any UI in this tutorial.

ASP.NET Core has built-in support for MVC building Web APIs.

See Build a web API with ASP.NET Core MVC and Visual Studio for a version of this tutorial that uses Visual Studio.

Overview

Here is the API that you’ll create:

API	Description	Request body	Response body
GET /api/todo	Get all to-do items	None	Array of to-do items
GET /api/todo/{id}	Get an item by ID	None	To-do item
POST /api/todo	Add a new item	To-do item	To-do item
PUT /api/todo/{id}	Update an existing item	To-do item	None
DELETE /api/todo/{id}	Delete an item	None	None

The following diagram shows the basic design of the app.

• The client is whatever consumes the web API (browser, mobile app, and so forth). We aren’t writing a client in this tutorial. We'll use Postman to test the app.

• A model is an object that represents the data in your application. In this case, the only model is a to-do item. Models are represented as simple C# classes (POCOs).

• A controller is an object that handles HTTP requests and creates the HTTP response. This app will have a single controller.

• To keep the tutorial simple, the app doesn’t use a persistent database. Instead, it stores to-do items in an in-memory database.

Set up your development environment

Download and install:

• .NET Core
• VS Code
• VS Code C# extension

Create the project

From a console, run the following commands:

mkdir TodoApi
cd TodoApi
dotnet new webapi

Open the TodoApi folder in Visual Studio Code (VS Code) and select the Startup.cs file.

• Select Yes to the Warn message "Required assets to build and debug are missing from 'TodoApi'. Add them?"
• Select Restore to the Info message "There are unresolved dependencies".

Press Debug (F5) to build and run the program. In a browser navigate to http://localhost:5000/api/values . The following is displayed:

["value1","value2"]

See Visual Studio Code help for tips on using VS Code.

Add support for Entity Framework Core

Edit the TodoApi.csproj file to install the Entity Framework Core InMemory database provider. This database provider allows Entity Framework Core to be used with an in-memory database.

[!code-xmlMain]

Run dotnet restore to download and install the EF Core InMemory DB provider. You can run dotnet restore from the terminal or enter ⌘⇧P (macOS) or Ctrl+Shift+P (Linux) in VS Code and then type .NET. Select .NET: Restore Packages.

Add a model class

A model is an object that represents the data in your application. In this case, the only model is a to-do item.

Add a folder named Models. You can put model classes anywhere in your project, but the Models folder is used by convention.

Add a TodoItem class with the following code:

[!code-csharpMain]

• The [Key] data annotation denotes the property, Key, is a unique identifier.
• [DatabaseGenerated specifies the database will generate the key (rather than the application).
• DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity specifies the database should generate integer keys when a row is inserted.

Create the database context

The database context is the main class that coordinates Entity Framework functionality for a given data model. You create this class by deriving from the Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.DbContext class.

Add a TodoContext class in the Models folder:

[!code-csharpMain]

Add a repository class

A repository is an object that encapsulates the data layer. The repository contains logic for retrieving and mapping data to an entity model. Create the repository code in the Models folder.

Defining a repository interface named ITodoRepository:

[!code-csharpMain]

This interface defines basic CRUD operations.

Add a TodoRepository class that implements ITodoRepository:

[!code-csharpMain]

Press Debug (F5) to build the app to verify you don't have any compiler errors.

Register the repository and EF in-memory database

By defining a repository interface, we can decouple the repository class from the MVC controller that uses it. Instead of instantiating a TodoRepository inside the controller we will inject an ITodoRepository using the built-in support in ASP.NET Core for dependency injection.

This approach makes it easier to unit test your controllers. Unit tests should inject a mock or stub version of ITodoRepository. That way, the test narrowly targets the controller logic and not the data access layer.

In order to inject the repository into the controller, we need to register it with the DI container. Open the Startup.cs file. The code below also registers the in-memory database.

In the ConfigureServices method, add the highlighted code:

[!code-csharpMain]

Add a controller

In the Controllers folder, create a class named TodoController. Add the following (and add closing braces):

[!code-csharpMain]

This defines an empty controller class. In the next sections, we'll add methods to implement the API.

Getting to-do items

To get to-do items, add the following methods to the TodoController class.

[!code-csharpMain]

These methods implement the two GET methods:

• GET /api/todo

• GET /api/todo/{id}

Here is an example HTTP response for the GetAll method:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
   Server: Microsoft-IIS/10.0
   Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 20:51:10 GMT
   Content-Length: 82

   [{"Key":"4f67d7c5-a2a9-4aae-b030-16003dd829ae","Name":"Item1","IsComplete":false}]

Later in the tutorial I'll show how you can view the HTTP response using Postman.

Routing and URL paths

The [HttpGet] attribute specifies an HTTP GET method. The URL path for each method is constructed as follows:

• Take the template string in the controller’s route attribute, [Route("api/[controller]")]
• Replace "[Controller]" with the name of the controller, which is the controller class name minus the "Controller" suffix. For this sample, the controller class name is TodoController and the root name is "todo". ASP.NET Core routing is not case sensitive.
• If the [HttpGet] attribute has a route template (such as [HttpGet("/products")], append that to the path. This sample doesn't use a template. See Attribute routing with Http[Verb] attributes for more information.

In the GetById method:

[HttpGet("{id}", Name = "GetTodo")]
public IActionResult GetById(long id)

"{id}" is a placeholder variable for the ID of the todo item. When GetById is invoked, it assigns the value of "{id}" in the URL to the method's id parameter.

Name = "GetTodo" creates a named route and allows you to link to this route in an HTTP Response. I'll explain it with an example later. See Routing to Controller Actions for detailed information.

Return values

The GetAll method returns an IEnumerable. MVC automatically serializes the object to JSON and writes the JSON into the body of the response message. The response code for this method is 200, assuming there are no unhandled exceptions. (Unhandled exceptions are translated into 5xx errors.)

In contrast, the GetById method returns the more general IActionResult type, which represents a wide range of return types. GetById has two different return types:

• If no item matches the requested ID, the method returns a 404 error. This is done by returning NotFound.

• Otherwise, the method returns 200 with a JSON response body. This is done by returning an ObjectResult

Launch the app

In VS Code, press F5 to launch the app. Navigate to http://localhost:5000/api/todo (The Todo controller we just created).

Implement the other CRUD operations

We'll add Create, Update, and Delete methods to the controller. These are variations on a theme, so I'll just show the code and highlight the main differences. Build the project after adding or changing code.

Create

[!code-csharpMain]

This is an HTTP POST method, indicated by the [HttpPost] attribute. The [FromBody] attribute tells MVC to get the value of the to-do item from the body of the HTTP request.

The CreatedAtRoute method returns a 201 response, which is the standard response for an HTTP POST method that creates a new resource on the server. CreatedAtRoute also adds a Location header to the response. The Location header specifies the URI of the newly created to-do item. See 10.2.2 201 Created.

Use Postman to send a Create request

• Set the HTTP method to POST
• Select the Body radio button
• Select the raw radio button
• Set the type to JSON
• In the key-value editor, enter a Todo item such as

{
	"name":"walk dog",
	"isComplete":true
}

• Select Send

Select the Headers tab in the lower pane and copy the Location header:

You can use the Location header URI to access the resource you just created. Recall the GetById method created the "GetTodo" named route:

[HttpGet("{id}", Name = "GetTodo")]
public IActionResult GetById(string id)

Update

[!code-csharpMain]

Update is similar to Create, but uses HTTP PUT. The response is 204 (No Content). According to the HTTP spec, a PUT request requires the client to send the entire updated entity, not just the deltas. To support partial updates, use HTTP PATCH.

Delete

[!code-csharpMain]

The response is 204 (No Content).

Visual Studio Code help

• Getting started

• Debugging

• Integrated terminal

• Keyboard shortcuts

  • Mac keyboard shortcuts
  • Linux keyboard shortcuts
  • Windows keyboard shortcuts

Next steps

• Routing to Controller Actions
• For information about deploying your API, see Publishing and Deployment.
• View or download sample code
• Postman