send neatly formatted json data to asp.net web api instead of default [FromBody] behavior

Question

I am trying to figure out a way to send a Json formatted data to a web api controller in a neat(more natural) way.

let me explain. Suppose I have this controller:

[HttpPost]
public class StudentController : ApiController
{

    public void PostSomething([FromBody] string name, [FromBody] Student s) 
    {
        //do something
    }
}

The json data that I WANT to post is something like this (as it is correctly formatted):

{
    "name" : "John",
    "student" : {
        "id" : "1",
        "age" : "22"
    }
}

But what I SHOULD send for the web api to parameter bind the objects should be like this:

{
    "John",
    {
        "id" : "1",
        "age" : "22"
    }
}

The problem is that if I use my desired json format, both name and student objects will be null in the PostSomething method of the controller.

How can I send a json request with a format similar to the first example to my web api controller?

Answer 1

In order to consume the desired JSON structure you can change the method signature of the PostSomething and introduce a class that represents the sent data. Eg

public class StudentTransferObject {
    public string Name {get; set;}
    public Student Student {get; set;}
}

With the Controller:

[HttpPost]
public class StudentController : ApiController
{    
    public void PostSomething([FromBody] StudentTransferObject studentInformation) 
    {
        //do something
    }
}

Answer 2

1. Read text from response body and parse the objects yourself:

   [HttpPost] public async Task<string> PostSomething() { string result = await Request.Content.ReadAsStringAsync(); //parse here how you want return result; }

2. Dynamic serialization with custom binding or JToken .