How to call WebAPI from a MVC Controller in a different project?

Question

I have to create a Web API for my existing MVC project and make API Controllers calling the Service Layer and Models, which is contained in separate projects but in the same Solution, then create and map to DTOs.

Layout of my Projects Solution in VS ( ignore the BookService.cs . I was just trying to do a WebAPI tutorial and I put it in the same solution temporarily).

I have been reading up on WebAPI and how it functions for the past 2 days, but I am not being able to fully grasp an understanding on how to create a API Controllers for my MVC project without referencing it? I also have to make Views at the end, in my main project calling the uri, but I am very confused at this point.

It would help me out a lot if someone can please clarify how I am to tackle this or point me to a tutorial or some sort of source to learn the process of working with Web API. Thank you.

Answer 1

The Web Api project will be a separate "website", that you will need to host individually. Your MVC project will make requests to the Web Api using HttpClient .

Since the Web Api will be separate, you won't be able to utilize helpers like Url.RouteUrl , etc. to get URLs for the Web Api actions. You will also just need to know the full URI to the Web Api, including it's domain. There will be no way to programmatically ascertain this information, so I would recommend making use of Application Settings to avoid hardcoding in your MVC project.

Right-click on your MVC project in the Solution Explorer and choose Properties. Then click over to the Settings tab. Here, you can add strongly-typed settings that your MVC application can utilize. Importantly, these settings are still persisted in the Web.config, so you can change them using config transforms. Your Web Api will likely have different URLs depending on whether you're in development vs. production, for example, so that will make it very easy to ensure that you're hitting the right thing in the right environment.

You can add a setting like WebApiUri , and give it a type of System.Uri . Then, set it to the string value of where your Web Api is hosted in development , ie http://localhost:12345 . It's important that the setting be specific to your development environment, as config transforms are not applied in development. For staging, production, etc. you'll change this setting appropriately in the applicable config transform, and it will be updated to the right value for the right environment when you publish.

Then, when you need to work with it, you'll just do something like:

var client = new HttpClient();
client.BaseAddress = Properties.Settings.Default.WebApiUri;

Then, just make requests as normal through the client. For more information on working with HttpClient , see the documentation .