Connecting Server and Client with Javascript and C#

Question

I need to create a web page that gets data from an SQL database, and can run certain executables (that have already been written from previous projects).The code to retrieve data from SQL was written in C#, as it was used previously with ASP.NET. Is it possible to reuse all of this code the way it is with my current application (using Angular)?

How to set up the server side? I know I probably have to create a web server, and then use "get" and "post" requests from the client side, am I on the right track. Can JavaScript client side communicate with a C#-written server side?

Answer 1

Unequivocally yes , you can have a JavaScript frontend communicate with a C# backend. There are two primary MS provided technologies that can be used:

• ASP.NET WebAPI
• SignalR

And lots of 3rd party ones (like Nancy).

WebAPI is a simple HTTP server typically used to build RESTful backends. Given your description its probably what you want to use.

SignalR is a protocol for "push" applications (though it can be used for server invocations). If you don't need to call client-side code its a bit overkill.

On the client side, if using WebAPI or similar on the backend, you just do HTTP requests as you would against any standard API. For AngularJS that's done with the $http service, for Angular (2+) that's Http and for 4+ HttpClient .