Is a text/plain formatter really included?

[jfoshee]

I believe the current documentation is misleading:

> Use a custom formatter when you want the content negotiation process to support a content type that isn't supported by the built-in formatters (JSON, XML, and plain text).

The TextInputFormatter is abstract and does not add text/plain as a supported media type. If there is a concrete derived class for plain text please document it here, and update the docs: <https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.aspnetcore.mvc.formatters.textinputformatter?view=aspnetcore-2.1>

As a result, it seems that one does in fact need to add a custom input formatter for plain text. See the TextPlainInputFormatter in this Stack Overflow response: <https://stackoverflow.com/a/41798960/483776>

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Document Details

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• ID: e2207f37-0cf3-3ab9-add8-c50c36409b53
• Version Independent ID: df89a2fd-501e-c917-2962-e4d8d124e852
• Content: Custom formatters in ASP.NET Core Web API
• Content Source: aspnetcore/web-api/advanced/custom-formatters.md
• Product: aspnet-core
• GitHub Login: @Rick-Anderson
• Microsoft Alias: tdykstra

[Rick-Anderson]

@tdykstra @scottaddie please confirm.

[Rick-Anderson]

@scottaddie @jfoshee , fixed in #10104

[kirodge]

The documentation was actually somewhat correct before.
If the client doesn't send an accept header, the default Outputformatter for simple strings is StringOutputFormatter which produces text/plain.
aspnet/Mvc#4945 (comment)

[Rick-Anderson]

@rynowak please review this issue and the changes made in https://github.com/aspnet/AspNetCore.Docs/pull/10104/files
@jfoshee please review

[rynowak]

@kirodge is correct. We have StringOutputFormatter which will output strings as plain-text https://github.com/aspnet/AspNetCore/blob/master/src/Mvc/Mvc.Core/src/Formatters/StringOutputFormatter.cs#L14

Is this actually a feature request?

[rynowak]

Oh, I see this is about input

[Rick-Anderson]

@serpent5 This looks like an easy one.