Refit RESTful library POC

Instead of you make your own HttpClient calls (which is a little bit low level and somewhat annoying) you can use Refit, an automatic type-safe REST library for .NET Core and Xamarin. It makes it easy to just declare the methods of a client and its associated REST API with a C# interfaces like this:

public interface ICompanyDepartmentsApi
    {
        [Post("/api/v1.1/departments/create")]
        [Headers("Authorization: Bearer")]
        Task<Department> CreateDepartment([Body] Department department);

        [Delete("/api/v1.1/departments/{id}")]
        [Headers("Authorization: Bearer")]
        Task DeleteDepartment(int id);

        [Get("/api/v1.1/departments/getall")]
        [Headers("Authorization: Bearer")]
        Task<IEnumerable<DepartmentDto>> GetAllDepartments();

        [Get("/api/v1.1/departments/{id}")]
        [Headers("Authorization: Bearer")]
        Task<Department> GetDepartment(int id);
    }

and then ask for an HttpClient that communicate that API's interface, calling it. Simply amazing.

...
private static async Task<string> GetAuthenticatedUserToken()
{
    var usersAuthenticationApi = RestService.For<ICompanyUsersApi>("http://localhost:52330");
    var user = new UserDto {Username = "johnw", Password = "test"};
    var authenticatedUser = await usersAuthenticationApi.AuthenticateUser(user);
    return authenticatedUser.Token;
}
...

// Authenticate User and retrieve token
var token = await GetAuthenticatedUserToken();

// Pass token to Refit
var usersApi = RestService.For<ICompanyUsersApi>("http://localhost:52330",
    new RefitSettings
    {
        AuthorizationHeaderValueGetter = () => Task.FromResult(token)
    });
    
var allUsers = await usersApi.GetAllUsers();
foreach (var usr in allUsers)
{
    Console.WriteLine(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(usr));
}    

What about HttpClientFactory?

Refit has now support for the ASP.Net Core 3.x HttpClientFactory. Add a reference to Refit.HttpClientFactory and call the provided extension method in your ConfigureServices method to configure your Refit interface:

// Configure Refit settings here
var settings = new RefitSettings(); 

services.AddRefitClient<IWebApi>()
        .ConfigureHttpClient(c => c.BaseAddress = new Uri("http://localhost:52330"));
        // Add additional IHttpClientBuilder chained methods as required here:
        // .AddHttpMessageHandler<MyHandler>()
        // .SetHandlerLifetime(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(5));

With Refit is really easy to make a quick strongly-typed REST Client for pretty much any API. Read more about it here.

Prerequisites

• Visual Studio 2019 16.4.5 or greater
• .NET Core SDK 3.1
• Refit RESTful Library for .NET

**NOTE: To make this demo up and running you have to load and run my OpenAPI.Swagger.Demo solution.

Go get Refit and play with it today. Enjoy!

Licence

Licenced under MIT. Contact me on LinkedIn.