Calling ASP.NET Web Api method with PHP

Question

I have the following web method in my web api controller

    public HttpResponseMessage PostMakeBooking(FacilityBookingRequest bookingRequest)
    {

        var returnStatus = HttpStatusCode.OK;
        var json = new JavaScriptSerializer().Serialize(bookingRequest);

        var response = Request.CreateResponse<CardholderResponse>(returnStatus, cardholderResponse);


        return response;

    }

When I make this call from my .NET app, my json string appears correctly when I seralize it

{"correlationId":null,"RequestId":"7ec5092a-342a-4e32-9311-10e7df3e3683","BookingId":"BK-123102","CardholderId":"123456","BookingFrom":"\/Date(1370512706448)\/","BookingUntil":"\/Date(1370523506449)\/","DeviceId":"ACU-01-R2","Action":"Add","LoginId":"tester","Password":"tester"}

However, when I made to call from my php script

public function web_request(){

    $guid   =self::getGUID();
    $replace = array("{","}");
    $guid  = str_replace($replace, "", $guid);

    $client = new Zend_Rest_Client("http://203.92.72.221");
    $request= new myZendCommon_FacilityBookingRequest();
    $request->RequestId         =$guid;
    $request->BookingFrom       ="27/03/2013 05:30";
    $request->BookingUntil      ="27/03/2013 06:30";
    $request->CardholderId      ="E0185963";
    $request->DeviceId          ="ACU-B2-01-R1";
    $request->BookingId         ="111";
    $request->Action            ="Add";
    $request->LoginId           ="tester";
    $request->correlationId     ="(null)";
    $request->Password          ="tester";


    $request = json_encode($request);

    $response = $client->restPost("/ibsswebapi/api/facilitybooking",$request);


    print_r($response);
    exit();

The call goes to my web method, but when I serialize it using JavaScriptSerializer().Serialize(bookingRequest)

{"correlationId":null,"RequestId":null,"BookingId":null,"CardholderId":null,"BookingFrom":"\/Date(-62135596800000)\/","BookingUntil":"\/Date(-62135596800000)\/","DeviceId":null,"Action":null,"LoginId":null,"Password":null}

All the values are null.

Is something wrong with the script?

Answer 1

I believe Kiran is right. Not sure why some one has felt his answer is not useful. Anyways, my understanding is that you are creating a JSON string and doing a form post of the same. I guess in this case the content type is sent as application/www-form-urlencoded but request body is a JSON string. You can use Fiddler to see how the request is being sent by the PHP script. I don't have the PHP knowledge to tell you how you can post JSON but my guess is that if you just remove the JSON encoding line $request = json_encode($request); , it should be okay.

From ASP.NET Web API point of view, if the request has Content-Type: application/json header and the body has the right JSON or if the request has Content-Type:application/www-form-urlencoded header and the body has the form url encoded content like RequestId=7ec5092a-342a-4e32-9311-10e7df3e3683&BookingId=BK-123102 and so on, web API will absolutely have no problem in binding. Currently, the request is not being sent in the right format for web API to bind.

Answer 2

1. Are you sending the header Content-Type:application/json in your request?

2. Also add the following piece of code to catch any model state validation errors:

.

if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
    throw new HttpResponseException(
         Request.CreateErrorResponse(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, this.ModelState));
}