Web api map request parameter with a hyphen to a Pascal cased complex model property

Question

I am trying to figure out a way to map POSTED form parameters that have hyphens in them to a WEB-API method that takes a complex object.

Some context:

We are using Mailgun to forward a processed email to our own custom Web API Controller method.

Mailgun POSTS to our API and some of the parameters it uses have hyphens in them - for example: body-plain.

My C# complex model will have a property to match in Pascal Case (can't use hyphens in property names)

so if these parameters are generated by Mailgun and posted to our WEB API controller:

   from
   subject
   body-plain
   body-stripped
   timestamp

and our complex object looks like this:

public class Response{
   public string From{get; set;}
   public string Subject{get; set;}
   public string BodyPlain{get; set;}    
   public string BodyStripped{get; set;
   public int Timestamp{get; set;}
}

Then From, Subject, and Timestamp all map correctly - but BodyPlain and BodyStripped do not - they are null since the model binding can't translate the hyphenated parameters to Camelcase.

Is there a way to do this?

I have seen some posts referring to different ways to achieve this with MVC but we are not using MVC, just strictly WEB API.

Did you ever find an answer for this? – Bert Apr 15 '16 at 23:44 — Bert, Apr 15 '16 at 23:44

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 22 '18 at 18:46

1

You can use the Request object in the controller, which will make the parameters available key/value style.

In the case of Mailgun forwarding (which was the same problem I ran into), the Request.ReadFormAsync() method will expose the IFormCollection, from which you can access the parameters you need via:

IFormCollection.TryGetValue("my-parameter", out StringValues myParameter)

edited Mar 22 '18 at 18:46

Bryan

2,870
24
39
44

answered Mar 22 '18 at 18:18

Matt Nordberg

46
3

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 22 '20 at 10:42

Since the parameters are sent through form submission and not JSON, using [JsonProperty(PropertyName = "my-param")] won't help and you'll have to resort to having your action receiving a parameter of type FormDataCollection and then inside your action you'll map it to your complex object. An alternative is to implement a custom model binder.

In this post there are details about those two options.

Web api map request parameter with a hyphen to a Pascal cased complex model property

2 Answers2