ASP.NET MVC Create list in Helper Controller from Web API Call

Question

I'm trying to create a Helper Controller that will essentially make a GET request to a Web API to create a list that will eventually be used to return JSON data. I found an example online that almost does what I want except that the data is hard-coded within the controller.

Controller (In C#):

public class StudentAPIController : Controller  
   {  
       // GET: api/GetAllStudents  
       [HttpGet]  
       public IEnumerable<PersonalDetail> GetAllStudents()  
       {  
           List<PersonalDetail> students = new List<PersonalDetail>  
           { 
           string uri = "URL_OF_API_CALL";

           new PersonalDetail{  
    // Here is where I want to make the API call to fetch the data instead of this hard-coded data
                              RegNo = "2017-0001",  
                              Name = "Nishan",  
                              Address = "Kathmandu",  
                              PhoneNo = "9849845061",  
                              AdmissionDate = DateTime.Now  
                              },  
           new PersonalDetail{  
                              RegNo = "2017-0002",  
                              Name = "Namrata Rai",  
                              Address = "Bhaktapur",  
                              PhoneNo = "9849845062",  
                              AdmissionDate = DateTime.Now  
                             },                
           };  
           return students;  
       }  
   }

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

First add this library :

System.Net.Http

Then you can use these line of codes to call another web api in your helper controller:

HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
client.BaseAddress = @"http://[YourBaseUri]/";
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Clear();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Add(new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));
var request = client.GetAsync("[YourActionName]");
return request.Result.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result;