Web API POST object always null

Question

I'm new with ASP.NET Web API's and I'm trying to write an API method that will send emails.

This is my sendEmail controller:

[Route("sendemail")]
[HttpPost]
public bool SendEmail(EmailObj email)
{
    var To = email.sendTo;
    var Subject = email.subject;
    var Message = email.message;
    ...
}

However, whenever I test it using postman, the object sent is null. This is how my json object is built in postman:

{
    "subject": "Test Message",
    "message": "this is a test",
    "sendTo": "sam@test.com"
}

I make sure that the type is marked as JSON on postman and tried formatting it in different ways, but it doesn't seem to work. The API recieves the email object but is always null.

Here's a screenshot of my postman in case I'm missing something.

Any help is appreciated.

Edit: Already tried adding "[FromBody]" and adding "email: {}" to the json but it doesn't work.

Possible duplicate of [Post parameter is always null](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10984040/post-parameter-is-always-null) — Matt Dillard, Oct 01 '18 at 19:10
Action method signature looks fine. What does your `EmailObj` look like? — sakura-bloom, Oct 01 '18 at 19:46

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 01 '18 at 19:09

0

You can do 2 things:

public bool SendEmail([FromBody]EmailObj email)

Or change the body of the json object to:

{
    "email": {
        "subject": "Test Message",
        "message": "this is a test",
        "sendTo": "sam@test.com"
    }
}

answered Oct 01 '18 at 19:09

Figurys

46
5

already tried both of these options and the object's still null – Sam Magdaleno Oct 01 '18 at 19:18

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 01 '18 at 19:30

0

I found what was the mistake, I was declaring my email object as 'Serializable' and that was preventing the json object to get any value.

answered Oct 01 '18 at 19:30

Sam Magdaleno

7
1
3

Where was it declared Serializable? – AussieJoe Oct 01 '18 at 19:34
Glad you figured it out. By the way, the properties in your `EmailObj` class can be PascalCased as per C# convention. The binding will work just fine. – sakura-bloom Oct 01 '18 at 19:56
You should update your question with the Serializable declaration, otherwise, your question is incomplete. – AussieJoe Oct 05 '18 at 15:09

Prakash Sanjel · Answer 3 · 2018-10-01T19:52:18.597

You can compare your controller with below code and you can click this link and see the output.

[RoutePrefix("api/test")]
public class TestController : ApiController
{

   [Route("sendemail")]
   [HttpPost]
   public bool SendEmail(EmailObj email)
   {
       if(email !=null)
       {
           return true;
       }
       return false;
   }

}

public class EmailObj
{
    public string sendTo { get; set; }
    public string subject { get; set; }
    public string message { get; set; }
}

This is my postman image that how I have called the post api.

This is my WebApi.config file image.

Web API POST object always null

3 Answers3