Web api error not found

User1052024640 posted

I still follow the tutorial in this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIkpVzqLuhA

Here is startup.cs:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting;

namespace WebApplication1
{
public class Startup
{
// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container.
// For more information on how to configure your application, visit https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=398940
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddControllers();
}

// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to configure the HTTP request pipeline.
public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
{
if (env.IsDevelopment())
{
app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
}
app.UseRouting();
app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
{
endpoints.MapGet(«/», async context =>
{
await context.Response.WriteAsync(«Hello World!»);
});
});
}
}
}

and here is the controller:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;

// For more information on enabling Web API for empty projects, visit https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=397860

namespace WebApplication1.Controller
{
[Route(«api/[controller]»)]
public class ValuesController : Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ControllerBase
{
// GET: api/<controller>
[HttpGet]
public IEnumerable<string> Get()
{
return new string[] { «value1», «value2» };
}

// GET api/<controller>/5
[HttpGet(«{id}»)]
public string Get(int id)
{
return «value»;
}

// POST api/<controller>
[HttpPost]
public void Post([FromBody]string value)
{
}

// PUT api/<controller>/5
[HttpPut(«{id}»)]
public void Put(int id, [FromBody]string value)
{
}

// DELETE api/<controller>/5
[HttpDelete(«{id}»)]
public void Delete(int id)
{
}
}
}

After I ran the URL https://localhost:44361/api/values/ , nothing works but receive a 404 Not Found.

I am using the .net core 3.0 preview 6 and I know it differs from the .net core 2.0 much. But I want how to solve it in .net core 3.0. Thank you.

I’d say that either a 200 or a 404 response code can be valid, depending on how you look at the situation.

The thing is that HTTP response codes are defined in the context of an server, which can deliver various resources based on their URL. In this context, the meanings of 200 OK and 404 Not Found are perfectly unambiguous: the former says «here’s the resource you asked for», while the latter says «sorry, I don’t have any resource like that».

However, in your situation, you have an additional application layer between the HTTP server and the actual resources (trees) that are being requested. The application occupies a sort of an intermediate space that is not well addressed in the HTTP spec.

From the webserver’s viewpoint, the application looks kind of like a resource: it’s typically a file on the server, identified by (a part of) the URL, just like other resources (e.g. static files) the server might serve. On the other hand, it’s a weird kind of resource, since it consists of executable code that dynamically determines the content, and indeed potentially even the status code, of the response, making it behave in some ways more like a mini-server.

In particular, in your example case, the webserver can locate the application just fine, but the application then fails to locate the subresource (tree) that has been requested. Now, if you consider the application to be just an extension of the server, and the subitem (tree) to be the actual resource, then a 404 response is appropriate: the server has merely delegated the task of finding the actual resource to the application, which it turn has failed to do so.

On the other hand, if your viewpoint is that the application is the resource being requested, then obviously the webserver should return a 200 response; after all, the application was found and executed correctly. Obviously, in this case, the application should actually return a valid response body in the expected format, indicating (using whatever higher-level protocol that format encodes) that no actual data matching the query was found.

Both of these viewpoints can make sense. In most cases, at least for applications intended to be directly accessed over HTTP with an ordinary web browser, I would favor the former view: the user generally doesn’t care about internal details like the difference between the server and the application, they just care about whether the data they wanted is there or not.

However, in the specific case of an application designed to communicate with other computer programs using a custom high-level API protocol, using HTTP only as a low-level transport layer, there’s an argument to be made in favor of the latter view: for clients interfacing with such an application, all they really care about, at the HTTP level, is whether they managed to successfully contact the application or not. Everything else is, in such cases, often more naturally communicated using the higher-level protocol.

---

In any case, regardless of which of the above views you prefer, there are a few details you should keep in mind. One is that, in many cases, there may be a meaningful distinction between an (essentially) empty resource and a nonexistent one.

On the HTTP level, an empty resource would simply be indicated by a 200 response code and an empty response body, while a nonexistent resource would be indicated by a 404 response and a resource body explaining the absence of the resource. In a higher-level API protocol, one would typically indicate a nonexistent resource by an error response, containing a suitable protocol-specific error code/message, while an empty response would simply be a normal response structure with no data items.

(Note that a resource need not be literally zero bytes long to be «empty» in the sense I mean above. For example, a search result with no matching items would count as empty in the broad sense, as would an SQL query result with no rows or an XML document containing no actual data.)

Also, of course, if the application really does believe that the requested subresource should be there, but can’t find it, then a third possible response code exists: 500 Internal Server Error. Such a response makes sense if the existence of the resource is an assumed precondition for the application, such that its absence necessarily indicates an internal malfunction.

Finally, you should always keep in mind Postel’s law:

«Be conservative in what you send, and liberal in what you receive.«

Whether the server should respond in a particular situation with a 200 or a 404 response, that doesn’t excuse you as the client implementor from handling either response appropriately and in the manner that maximizes robust interoperability. Of course, what «appropriate» handling means in different situations can be argued, but it certainly shouldn’t normally include crashing or otherwise «falling apart».

Handling errors in an ASP.NET Core Web API

This post looks at the best ways to handle exceptions, validation and other invalid requests such as 404s in ASP.NET Core Web API projects and how these approaches differ from MVC error handling.

Why do we need a different approach from MVC?

In .Net Core, MVC and Web API have been combined so you now have the same controllers for both MVC actions and API actions. However, despite the similarities, when it comes to error handling, you almost certainly want to use a different approach for API errors.

MVC actions are typically executed as a result of a user action in the browser so returning an error page to the browser is the correct approach. With an API, this is not generally the case.

API calls are most often called by back-end code or javascript code and in both cases, you never want to simply display the response from the API. Instead we check the status code and parse the response to determine if our action was successful, displaying data to the user as necessary. An error page is not helpful in these situations. It bloats the response with HTML and makes client code difficult because JSON (or XML) is expected, not HTML.

While we want to return information in a different format for Web API actions, the techniques for handling errors are not so different from MVC. Much of the time, it is practically the same flow but instead of returning a View, we return JSON. Let’s look at a few examples.

The minimal approach

With MVC actions, failure to display a friendly error page is unacceptable in a professional application. With an API, while not ideal, empty response bodies are far more permissible for many invalid request types. Simply returning a 404 status code (with no response body) for an API route that does not exist may provide the client with enough information to fix their code.

With zero configuration, this is what ASP.NET Core gives us out of the box.

Depending on your requirements, this may be acceptable for many common status codes but it will rarely be sufficient for validation failures. If a client passes you invalid data, returning a 400 Bad Request is not going to be helpful enough for the client to diagnose the problem. At a minimum, we need to let them know which fields are incorrect and ideally, we would return an informative message for each failure.

With ASP.NET Web API, this is trivial. Assuming that we are using model binding, we get validation for free by using data annotations and/or IValidatableObject. Returning the validation information to the client as JSON is one easy line of code.

Here is our model:

public class GetProductRequest : IValidatableObject
{
    [Required]
    public string ProductId { get; set; }

    public IEnumerable<ValidationResult> Validate(ValidationContext validationContext)
    {
        if (...)
        {
            yield return new ValidationResult("ProductId is invalid", new[] { "ProductId" });
        }
    }
}

And our controller action:

[HttpGet("product")]
public IActionResult GetProduct(GetProductRequest request)
{
    if (!ModelState.IsValid)
    {
        return BadRequest(ModelState);
    }

    ...
}

A missing ProductId results in a 400 status code plus a JSON response body similar to the following:

{
    "ProductId":["The ProductId field is required."]
}

This provides an absolute minimum for a client to consume our service but it is not difficult to improve upon this baseline and create a much better client experience. In the next few sections we will look at how simple it is to take our service to the next level.

Returning additional information for specific errors

If we decide that a status code only approach is too bare-bones, it is easy to provide additional information. This is highly recommended. There are many situations where a status code by itself is not enough to determine the cause of failure. If we take a 404 status code as an example, in isolation, this could mean:

• We are making the request to the wrong site entirely (perhaps the ‘www’ site rather than the ‘api’ subdomain)
• The domain is correct but the URL does not match a route
• The URL correctly maps to a route but the resource does not exist

If we could provide information to distinguish between these cases, it could be very useful for a client. Here is our first attempt at dealing with the last of these:

[HttpGet("product")]
public async Task<IActionResult> GetProduct(GetProductRequest request)
{
    ...

    var model = await _db.Get(...);

    if (model == null)
    {
        return NotFound("Product not found");
    }

    return Ok(model);
}

We are now returning a more useful message but it is far from perfect. The main problem is that by using a string in the NotFound method, the framework will return this string as a plain text response rather than JSON.

As a client, a service returning a different content type for certain errors is much harder to deal with than a consistent JSON service.

This issue can quickly be rectified by changing the code to what is shown below but in the next section, we will talk about a better alternative.

return NotFound(new { message = "Product not found" });

Customising the response structure for consistency

Constructing anonymous objects on the fly is not the approach to take if you want a consistent client experience. Ideally our API should return the same response structure in all cases, even when the request was unsuccessful.

Let’s define a base ApiResponse class:

public class ApiResponse
{
    public int StatusCode { get; }

    [JsonProperty(NullValueHandling = NullValueHandling.Ignore)]
    public string Message { get; }

    public ApiResponse(int statusCode, string message = null)
    {
        StatusCode = statusCode;
        Message = message ?? GetDefaultMessageForStatusCode(statusCode);
    }

    private static string GetDefaultMessageForStatusCode(int statusCode)
    {
        switch (statusCode)
        {
            ...
            case 404:
                return "Resource not found";
            case 500:
                return "An unhandled error occurred";
            default:
                return null;
        }
    }
}

We’ll also need a derived ApiOkResponse class that allows us to return data:

public class ApiOkResponse : ApiResponse
{
    public object Result { get; }

    public ApiOkResponse(object result)
        :base(200)
    {
        Result = result;
    }
}

Finally, let’s declare an ApiBadRequestResponse class to handle validation errors (if we want our responses to be consistent, we will need to replace the built-in functionality used above).

public class ApiBadRequestResponse : ApiResponse
{
    public IEnumerable<string> Errors { get; }

    public ApiBadRequestResponse(ModelStateDictionary modelState)
        : base(400)
    {
        if (modelState.IsValid)
        {
            throw new ArgumentException("ModelState must be invalid", nameof(modelState));
        }

        Errors = modelState.SelectMany(x => x.Value.Errors)
            .Select(x => x.ErrorMessage).ToArray();
    }
}

These classes are very simple but can be customised to your own requirements.

If we change our action to use these ApiResponse based classes, it becomes:

[HttpGet("product")]
public async Task<IActionResult> GetProduct(GetProductRequest request)
{
    if (!ModelState.IsValid)
    {
        return BadRequest(new ApiBadRequestResponse(ModelState));
    }

    var model = await _db.Get(...);

    if (model == null)
    {
        return NotFound(new ApiResponse(404, $"Product not found with id {request.ProductId}"));
    }

    return Ok(new ApiOkResponse(model));
}

The code is slightly more complicated now but all three types of response from our action (success, bad request and not found) now use the same general structure.

Centralising Validation Logic

Given that validation is something that you do in practically every action, it makes to refactor this generic code into an action filter. This reduces the size of our actions, removes duplicated code and improves consistency.

public class ApiValidationFilterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
    public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext context)
    {
        if (!context.ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            context.Result = new BadRequestObjectResult(new ApiBadRequestResponse(context.ModelState));
        }

        base.OnActionExecuting(context);
    }
}

Handling global errors

Responding to bad input in our controller actions is the best way to provide specific error information to our client. Sometimes however, we need to respond to more generic issues. Examples of this include:

• A 401 Unauthorized code returned from security middleware.

• A request URL that does not map to a controller action resulting in a 404.

• Global exceptions. Unless you can do something about a specific exception, you should not clutter your actions with try catch blocks.

As with MVC, the easiest way to deal with global errors is by using StatusCodePagesWithReExecute and UseExceptionHandler.

We talked about StatusCodePagesWithReExecute last time but to reiterate, when a non-success status code is returned from inner middleware (such as an API action), the middleware allows you to execute another action to deal with the status code and return a custom response.

UseExceptionHandler works in a similar way, catching and logging unhandled exceptions and allowing you to execute another action to handle the error. In this example, we configure both pieces of middleware to point to the same action.

We add the middleware in startup.cs:

app.UseStatusCodePagesWithReExecute("/error/{0}");
app.UseExceptionHandler("/error/500");
...
//register other middleware that might return a non-success status code

Then we add our error handling action:

[Route("error/{code}")]
public IActionResult Error(int code)
{
    return new ObjectResult(new ApiResponse(code));
}

With this in place, all exceptions and non-success status codes (without a response body) will be handled by our error action where we return our standard ApiResponse.

Custom Middleware

For the ultimate in control, you can replace or complement built-in middleware with your own custom middleware. The example below handles any bodiless response and returns our simple ApiResponse object as JSON. If this is used in conjunction with code in our actions to return ApiResponse objects, we can ensure that both success and failure responses share the same common structure and all requests result in both a status code and a consistent JSON body:

public class ErrorWrappingMiddleware
{
    private readonly RequestDelegate _next;
    private readonly ILogger<ErrorWrappingMiddleware> _logger;
    
    public ErrorWrappingMiddleware(RequestDelegate next, ILogger<ErrorWrappingMiddleware> logger)
    {
        _next = next;
        _logger = logger ?? throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(logger));
    }

    public async Task Invoke(HttpContext context)
    {
        try
        {
            await _next.Invoke(context);
        }
        catch(Exception ex)
        {
            _logger.LogError(EventIds.GlobalException, ex, ex.Message);

            context.Response.StatusCode = 500;
        }            

        if (!context.Response.HasStarted)
        {
            context.Response.ContentType = "application/json";

            var response = new ApiResponse(context.Response.StatusCode);

            var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(response);

            await context.Response.WriteAsync(json);
        }            
    }
}

Conclusion

Handling errors in ASP.NET Core APIs is similar but different from MVC error code. At the action level, we want to return custom objects (serialised as JSON) rather than custom views.

For generic errors, we can still use the StatusCodePagesWithReExecute middleware but need to modify our code to return an ObjectResult instead of a ViewResult.

For full control, it is not difficult to write your own middleware to handle errors exactly as required.

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        Introduction:

                    Building modern HTTP/RESTful/RPC services has become very easy with the new ASP.NET Web API framework. Using ASP.NET Web API framework, you can create HTTP services which can be accessed from browsers, machines, mobile devices and other clients. Developing HTTP services is now become more easy for ASP.NET MVC developer becasue ASP.NET Web API is now included in ASP.NET MVC. In addition to developing HTTP services, it is also important to return meaningful response to client if a resource(uri) not found(HTTP 404) for a reason(for example, mistyped resource uri). It is also important to make this response centralized so you can configure all of ‘HTTP 404 Not Found’ resource at one place. In this article, I will show you how to handle ‘HTTP 404 Not Found’ at one place.

        Description:

                    Let’s say that you are developing a HTTP RESTful application using ASP.NET Web API framework. In this application you need to handle HTTP 404 errors in a centralized location. From ASP.NET Web API point of you, you need to handle these situations,

• No route matched.
• Route is matched but no {controller} has been found on route.
• No type with {controller} name has been found.
• No matching action method found in the selected controller due to no action method start with the request HTTP method verb or no action method with IActionHttpMethodProviderRoute implemented attribute found or no method with {action} name found or no method with the matching {action} name found.

                     Now, let create a ErrorController with Handle404 action method. This action method will be used in all of the above cases for sending HTTP 404 response message to the client. 

    public class ErrorController : ApiController
    {
        [HttpGet, HttpPost, HttpPut, HttpDelete, HttpHead, HttpOptions, AcceptVerbs("PATCH")]
        public HttpResponseMessage Handle404()
        {
            var responseMessage = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.NotFound);
            responseMessage.ReasonPhrase = "The requested resource is not found";
            return responseMessage;
        }
    }

                    You can easily change the above action method to send some other specific HTTP 404 error response. If a client of your HTTP service send a request to a resource(uri) and no route matched with this uri on server then you can route the request to the above Handle404 method using a custom route. Put this route at the very bottom of route configuration, 

    routes.MapHttpRoute(
        name: "Error404",
        routeTemplate: "{*url}",
        defaults: new { controller = "Error", action = "Handle404" }
    );

                    Now you need handle the case when there is no {controller} in the matching route or when there is no type with {controller} name found. You can easily handle this case and route the request to the above Handle404 method using a custom IHttpControllerSelector. Here is the definition of a custom IHttpControllerSelector,

    public class HttpNotFoundAwareDefaultHttpControllerSelector : DefaultHttpControllerSelector
    {
        public HttpNotFoundAwareDefaultHttpControllerSelector(HttpConfiguration configuration)
            : base(configuration)
        {
        }
        public override HttpControllerDescriptor SelectController(HttpRequestMessage request)
        {
            HttpControllerDescriptor decriptor = null;
            try
            {
                decriptor = base.SelectController(request);
            }
            catch (HttpResponseException ex)
            {
                var code = ex.Response.StatusCode;
                if (code != HttpStatusCode.NotFound)
                    throw;
                var routeValues = request.GetRouteData().Values;
                routeValues["controller"] = "Error";
                routeValues["action"] = "Handle404";
                decriptor = base.SelectController(request);
            }
            return decriptor;
        }
    }

                    Next, it is also required to pass the request to the above Handle404 method if no matching action method found in the selected controller due to the reason discussed above. This situation can also be easily handled through a custom IHttpActionSelector. Here is the source of custom IHttpActionSelector, 

    public class HttpNotFoundAwareControllerActionSelector : ApiControllerActionSelector
    {
        public HttpNotFoundAwareControllerActionSelector()
        {
        }

        public override HttpActionDescriptor SelectAction(HttpControllerContext controllerContext)
        {
            HttpActionDescriptor decriptor = null;
            try
            {
                decriptor = base.SelectAction(controllerContext);
            }
            catch (HttpResponseException ex)
            {
                var code = ex.Response.StatusCode;
                if (code != HttpStatusCode.NotFound && code != HttpStatusCode.MethodNotAllowed)
                    throw;
                var routeData = controllerContext.RouteData;
                routeData.Values["action"] = "Handle404";
                IHttpController httpController = new ErrorController();
                controllerContext.Controller = httpController;
                controllerContext.ControllerDescriptor = new HttpControllerDescriptor(controllerContext.Configuration, "Error", httpController.GetType());
                decriptor = base.SelectAction(controllerContext);
            }
            return decriptor;
        }
    }

                    Finally, we need to register the custom IHttpControllerSelector and IHttpActionSelector. Open global.asax.cs file and add these lines, 

    configuration.Services.Replace(typeof(IHttpControllerSelector), new HttpNotFoundAwareDefaultHttpControllerSelector(configuration));
    configuration.Services.Replace(typeof(IHttpActionSelector), new HttpNotFoundAwareControllerActionSelector());

        Summary:

                    In addition to building an application for HTTP services, it is also important to send meaningful centralized information in response when something goes wrong, for example ‘HTTP 404 Not Found’ error.  In this article, I showed you how to handle ‘HTTP 404 Not Found’ error in a centralized location. Hopefully you will enjoy this article too.