WebApiProxy on the client side

Usage

This extension provides a proxy endpoint in your service (with /api/proxies as the default) that serves a JavaScript client (using JQuery) and/or service metadata.

The following examples will assume a Person API on the server:

public class Person {
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

public class PeopleController : ApiController
{
    public Person[] Get() {
        ...
    }

    public Person Get(int id) {
        ...
    }
}

JavaScript client

Simply reference the proxy endpoint provided inside your HTML and you're good to go:

<script src="/api/proxies" type="text/javascript"></script>

It allows you to use it in JavaScript like this:

$.proxies.person.get()
  .done(function(people) {
    //do something with people
});

$.proxies.person.get(2)          //get person with id = 2
  .done(function(person) {
    //do something with person
});

This functionality was adopted from ProxyApi - kudos to Stephen Greatrex :)

C# client

Generate a C# proxy on the client-side based on the metadata provided by a service implementing WebApiProxy.

Install via NuGet

Install this package from NuGet:

Install-Package WebApiProxy.CSharp

Note: This package requires the libraries of ASP.NET Web API Client (version 5.2 or higher)

Generation

Note: The automatic generation of code upon project build is now completely opt-in. You need to explicitly specify if you want the proxy to be generated on every build.

The C# proxy code will be generated every time you re-build the project (only if you explicitly specified generateOnBuild="true") and is based on specific configuration in the WebApiProxy.config file:

<proxy endpoint="http://myservice.net/api/proxies" />

The endpoint property is mandatory and provides the generator the URI of the metadata endpoint. See the WebApiProxy Configuration File page to read more on the config file.

Note: The generated code is cached to avoid compilation errors if the service isn't reachable at that time

On-demand generation using the Nuget Package Manager Console

You can also generate proxy code on demand by using the Nuget Package Manager Console. Simply run the commandlet:

WebApiProxy-Generate-CSharp

Usage

After the code generation it can be used like:

using (var client = new PeopleClient())
{
    var response = await client.GetAsync(2); //get person with id = 2

    var people = await response.Content.ReadAsAsync<Person[]>();
}

Code snippet

Use the webapiproxy code snippet to quickly create the code structure above. Just type "webapiproxy" followed by the TAB key.

Note: If the types are not found (or resolved) after build, simply give your project a restart or restart Visual Studio.

Great developer experience with Intellisense

It even has nice Intellisense including documentation provided by the documentation provider:

Note: The documentation on the IntelliSense will only appear if the service uses the documentation provider. You can use the ASP.NET Web API Help Page package on NuGet