In an ideal world you would convert the app to web api controllers as someone else suggested but to be more pragmatic you can implement an interim solution where you expose only the required calls via extending ApiController
You did not mention which version of MVC your current app is using nor did you mention how your current Controllers return data to the web app.
I will therefore assume you return data via a view model and razor views. eg:
public class ProductsController : Controller
{
public void Index()
{
var view = new ProductsListView();
view.Products = _repository.GetProducts();
return View(view);
}
}
Suppose now you want to expose the products list via a REST-like api?
First check you have web api installed (via nuget)
Install-Package Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi
(again i'm not sure what ver of asp.net you are on so this process may differ between versions)
Now in your public void Application_Start()
GlobalConfiguration.Configure(WebApiConfig.Register);//add this before! line below
RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);//this line shld already exist
and in WebApiConfig
public static class WebApiConfig
{
public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
}
}
I like to create a dedicated folder called ApiControllers and add controllers with the same name; this way you can have controllers with the same names as they are in different namespaces:
namespace YourApp.Web.ApiControllers
{
[AllowAnonymous]
public class ProductsController : ApiController
{
[HttpGet]
public HttpResponseMessage Products()
{
var result = new ProductResult();//you could also use the view class ProductsListView
result.Products = _repository.GetProducts();
return Request.CreateResponse(httpStatusCode, result);
}
}
}
You can then access this via yourapp.com/api/products
nb, try to reduce duplication of code inside controllers - this can be acheived by extracting common parts into service classes.
