Exercise - Add a controller - Training

5 minutes

A controller is a public class with one or more public methods known as actions. By convention, a controller is placed in the project root's Controllers directory. The actions are exposed as HTTP endpoints inside the web API controller.

Create a controller

Select the Controllers folder in Visual Studio Code and add a new file called PizzaController.cs.

An empty class file named PizzaController.cs is created in the Controllers directory. The Controllers directory name is a convention. The directory name comes from the model-view-controller architecture that the web API uses.

Note

By convention, controller class names are suffixed with Controller.
Add the following code to Controllers/PizzaController.cs. Save your changes.
```
using ContosoPizza.Models;
using ContosoPizza.Services;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;

namespace ContosoPizza.Controllers;

[ApiController]
[Route("[controller]")]
public class PizzaController : ControllerBase
{
    public PizzaController()
    {
    }

    // GET all action

    // GET by Id action

    // POST action

    // PUT action

    // DELETE action
}
```
As you learned previously, this class derives from ControllerBase, the base class for working with HTTP requests in ASP.NET Core. It also includes the two standard attributes you've learned about: [ApiController] and [Route]. As before, the [Route] attribute defines a mapping to the [controller] token. Because this controller class is named PizzaController, this controller handles requests to https://localhost:{PORT}/pizza.

Get all pizzas

The first REST verb that you need to implement is GET, where a client can get all pizzas from the API. You can use the built-in [HttpGet] attribute to define a method that returns the pizzas from our service.

Replace the // GET all action comment in Controllers/PizzaController.cs with the following code:

[HttpGet]
public ActionResult<List<Pizza>> GetAll() =>
    PizzaService.GetAll();

The preceding action:

Responds only to the HTTP GET verb, as denoted by the [HttpGet] attribute.
Returns an ActionResult instance of type List<Pizza>. The ActionResult type is the base class for all action results in ASP.NET Core.
Queries the service for all pizza and automatically returns data with a Content-Type value of application/json.

Retrieve a single pizza

The client might also want to request information about a specific pizza instead of the entire list. You can implement another GET action that requires an id parameter. You can use the built-in [HttpGet("{id}")] attribute to define a method that returns the pizzas from our service. The routing logic registers [HttpGet] (without id) and [HttpGet("{id}")] (with id) as two different routes. You can then write a separate action to retrieve a single item.

Replace the // GET by Id action comment in Controllers/PizzaController.cs with the following code:

[HttpGet("{id}")]
public ActionResult<Pizza> Get(int id)
{
    var pizza = PizzaService.Get(id);

    if(pizza == null)
        return NotFound();

    return pizza;
}

The preceding action:

Responds only to the HTTP GET verb, as denoted by the [HttpGet] attribute.
Requires that the id parameter's value is included in the URL segment after pizza/. Remember, the controller-level [Route] attribute defined the /pizza pattern.
Queries the database for a pizza that matches the provided id parameter.

Each ActionResult instance used in the preceding action is mapped to the corresponding HTTP status code in the following table:

ASP.NET Core action result	HTTP status code	Description
`Ok` is implied	200	A product that matches the provided `id` parameter exists in the in-memory cache. The product is included in the response body in the media type, as defined in the `accept` HTTP request header (JSON by default).
`NotFound`	404	A product that matches the provided `id` parameter doesn't exist in the in-memory cache.

Build and run the new controller

Build and start the web API by running the following command:

dotnet run

Test the controller with .http file

Open ContosoPizza.http

Add a new GET to call the Pizza endpoint under the ### seperator:

GET {{ContosoPizza_HostAddress}}/pizza/
Accept: application/json

###

Select the Send Request command above this new GET call.

The preceding command returns a list of all pizzas in JSON:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: close
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2024 16:57:09 GMT
Server: Kestrel
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

[
    {
        "id": 1,
        "name": "Classic Italian",
        "isGlutenFree": false
    },
    {
        "id": 2,
        "name": "Veggie",
        "isGlutenFree": true
    }
]

To query for a single pizza, you can make another GET request, but pass in an id parameter by using the following command:

GET {{ContosoPizza_HostAddress}}/pizza/1
Accept: application/json

###

The preceding command returns Classic Italian with the following output:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Date: Fri, 02 Apr 2021 21:57:57 GMT
Server: Kestrel
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

{
    "id": 1,
    "name": "Classic Italian",
    "isGlutenFree": false
}

Our API also handles situations where the item doesn't exist. Call the API again, but pass in an invalid pizza id parameter by using the following command:

GET {{ContosoPizza_HostAddress}}/pizza/5
Accept: application/json

###

The preceding command returns a 404 Not Found error with the following output:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/problem+json; charset=utf-8
Date: Fri, 02 Apr 2021 22:03:06 GMT
Server: Kestrel
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

{
    "type": "https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7231#section-6.5.4",
    "title": "Not Found",
    "status": 404,
    "traceId": "00-ec263e401ec554b6a2f3e216a1d1fac5-4b40b8023d56762c-00"
}

You've now finished implementing the GET verbs. In the next unit, you can add more actions to PizzaController to support CRUD operations on pizza data.

Optional: Test the controller with Command Line HTTP REPL

Open the existing httprepl terminal, or open a new integrated terminal from Visual Studio Code by selecting Terminal > New Terminal from the main menu.
Connect to our web API by running the following command:
```
httprepl https://localhost:{PORT}
```
Alternatively, run the following command at any time while HttpRepl is running:
```
connect https://localhost:{PORT}
```
To see the newly available Pizza endpoint, run the following command:
```
ls
```
The preceding command detects all APIs available on the connected endpoint. It should display the following code:
```
 https://localhost:{PORT}/> ls
 .                 []
 Pizza             [GET]
 WeatherForecast   [GET]
```
Go to the Pizza endpoint by running the following command:
```
cd Pizza
```
The preceding command shows an output of available APIs for the Pizza endpoint:
```
https://localhost:{PORT}/> cd Pizza
/Pizza    [GET]
```

Make a GET request in HttpRepl by using the following command:

get