Return ObjectResult - Without Double Quotes

[Fosol]

Is there such thing as a RawResult? ObjectResult has some annoying behaviour that if you submit a string as the value it will always include double quotes in the response regardless of the ContentType you specify.

I want to ensure no double quotes are included in the response.

[kichalla]

I suppose the response is being sent back as json, hence the double quotes. This sounds like a bug. Meanwhile you can return a ContentResult which sends content as it is with text/plain as the content type.

[Fosol]

I actually need a dynamic content type based on a number of conditions.

[kichalla]

I see. You could add the StringOutputFormatter in the output formatter list. This formatter writes content in text/plain formatter. Since order of formatter matters, make sure to add it before other formatters like json or xml.

[rynowak]

This sounds like a bug.

This is not a bug. This comes up from time to time and the recommendation is to use the string output formatter if you want strings to go onto the wire as-is.

This formatter writes content in text/plain formatter

This changed for RC2. If the returned object is a string, it can write any content type.

I actually need a dynamic content type based on a number of conditions.

If you can give us more information about what you're trying to do we can help.

[Fosol]

Sounds like RC2 has a way to return a ContentResult and make sure it doesn't include double quotes around string values, with the additional control of setting the content type?

Let me know if I understand that correctly.

Which means I'll have to wait to upgrade since I'm buried in building in RC1.

[rynowak]

Sounds like RC2 has a way to return a ContentResult and make sure it doesn't include double quotes around string values, with the additional control of setting the content type?

This has been around forever: https://github.com/aspnet/Mvc/blob/master/src/Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc.ViewFeatures/Controller.cs#L471

ContentResult will just write out your text verbatim.

[jods4]

@rynowak I think you should reconsider this.
I was bitten by it today in RC2.
StringOutputFormatter writes returned string verbatim to the output.
But this makes no sense:

**Request**
Accept: application/json

**Response
Content-Type: application/json

Hello World <-- this is no JSON

As you can see, the server does advertise that it is serializing JSON in Content-Type but the response body is not JSON. Also, the client requested JSON exclusively but gets a 200 OK with no JSON content.
This can only be seen as a bug as the response as a whole is clearly invalid.

I think moving the StringOutputFormatter after JsonOutputFormatter would be reasonable and fix this.
For the use case where I want to return manually serialized JSON verbatim from my Action, ContentResult is there for that and indicate intent. Returning a string is too ambiguous to override the proper content type serialization.

[rynowak]

I agree, this doesn't seem right or useful.

[rynowak]

@jods, see #4945 (comment)

We're planning to change this behavior for 2.0.

I'm going to close this issue because I've already got a long-winded explanation including our future plans in #4945