Action Method Results

Abstract

In this chapter, I start digging into the details of how Web API web services work, starting right at the heart of web services, namely, the different ways that action methods return results and how these are used to generate HTTP responses. As you will learn, Web API has convenient features that use the standard characteristics of C# methods to express results, which makes generating the most common types of results easy. Behind this convenience is a flexible and extensible system of action results, which are similar to the ones used by the MVC framework and which allow for complete control over the HTTP response sent to the client. I explain how this system works and demonstrate how you can customize it. Table 11-1 summarizes this chapter.