Arbor Web API Formatting x-www-form-urlencoded

The XWwwFormUrlEncodedFormatter makes it possible to extract values from a x-www-form-urlencoded http request into .NET poco objects.

It matches x-www-form-urlencoded parameters object properties.

Make sure to register it as the first formatter or remove the default registered JQueryMvcFormUrlEncodedFormatter instance.

The JQueryMvcFormUrlEncodedFormatter cannot handle immutable classes without a default constructor.

HttpConfiguration config = GlobalConfiguration.Configuration;
var formatters = config.Formatters;
formatters.Insert(0, new XWwwFormUrlEncodedFormatter());

Example:

public class BookingController : ApiController
{ 
  public object Post(BookingCancellationRequest request) {
    return request; //Just a sample echo response
  }
}

public class BookingCancellationRequest
{
    readonly int _bookingId;
    readonly string _reason;

    public BookingCancellationRequest(int bookingId, string reason) {
        _bookingId = bookingId;
        _reason = reason;
    }
    
    public string Reason { get { return _reason; } }

    public int BookingId { get { return _bookingId; } }
}

An object of type BookingCancellationRequest can be created automatically by the body

bookingId=123&reason=sunshine

If there are multiple key-value pairs with the same key then the values will be mapped to a string array.

newUsers=Alice&newUsers=Bob

will be mapped to an object of class

public class NewUsersRequest
{
    readonly IEnumerable<string> _newUsers;

    public NewUsersRequest(IEnumerable<string> newUsers) {
        _newUsers = newUsers;
    }
    
    public IEnumerable<string> NewUsers { get { return _newUsers; } }
}