I have an MVC API controller with the following action.
I don't understand how to read the actual data/body of the Message?
[HttpPost] public void Confirmation(HttpRequestMessage request) { var content = request.Content; } 
4 Answers
From this answer:
[HttpPost] public void Confirmation(HttpRequestMessage request) { var content = request.Content; string jsonContent = content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result; } Note: As seen in the comments, this code could cause a deadlock and should not be used. See this blog post for more detail.
7 Comments
Kurkula
From developer point of view, using aync may not be a better option in case if you want to debug or wait till the operation is complete to view data.
makhdumi
People, please read @ToddMenier's comment: DO NOT use this code in production. It's appeared in our code and has deadlocked.
Thomas Schreiter
Details about why this can deadlock: blog.stephencleary.com/2012/07/dont-block-on-async-code.html
Miro J.
This is the wrong solution. Look at @Zebing Lin's answer
Björn Larsson
So how should this answer be edited to not cause a deadlock? Please update the answer instead of refering the reader to an external site.
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using System.IO; string requestFromPost; using( StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(HttpContext.Current.Request.InputStream) ) { reader.BaseStream.Position = 0; requestFromPost = reader.ReadToEnd(); } 
4 Comments
stannius
Request.Content is a stream. Depending on when precisely your code ran, the stream may have already been consumed.
Sel
This works for MVC, while accepted answer for Web Api only
Rangoric
The BaseStream.Position = 0 clued me into the fact that if the content is eaten by the framework to fill in a parameter for the HttpPost method, that the stream might be reset. Which it was. Thank you.
John Spax
This worked for me as well, should be the accepted answer.
I suggest that you should not do it like this. Action methods should be designed to be easily unit-tested. In this case, you should not access data directly from the request, because if you do it like this, when you want to unit test this code you have to construct a HttpRequestMessage.
You should do it like this to let MVC do all the model binding for you:
[HttpPost] public void Confirmation(YOURDTO yourobj)//assume that you define YOURDTO elsewhere { //your logic to process input parameters. } In case you do want to access the request. You just access the Request property of the controller (not through parameters). Like this:
[HttpPost] public void Confirmation() { var content = Request.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result; } In MVC, the Request property is actually a wrapper around .NET HttpRequest and inherit from a base class. When you need to unit test, you could also mock this object.
3 Comments
ayasha
And in case you have HttpGet? If I use Request.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result; it doesn't work!
Khanh TO
@ayasha: with HttpGet, the parameters should come from query string instead of request body.
Khanh TO
@ayasha: I have also updated the answer. Just realized it did not work before
In case you want to cast to a class and not just a string:
YourClass model = await request.Content.ReadAsAsync<YourClass>(); 
request.Content?