How do I get ASP.NET Web API to return JSON instead of XML using Chrome?
Using the newer ASP.NET Web API , in Chrome I am seeing XML - how can I change it to request JSON so I can view it in the browser? I do believe it is just part of the request headers, am I correct in that?
I just add the following in App_Start / WebApiConfig.cs class in my MVC Web API project.
config.Formatters.JsonFormatter.SupportedMediaTypes
.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue("text/html") );
That makes sure you get json on most queries, but you can get xml when you send text/xml .
If you need to have the response Content-Type as application/json please check Todd's answer below.
NameSpace is using System.Net.Http.Headers ;
If you do this in the WebApiConfig you will get JSON by default, but it will still allow you to return XML if you pass text/xml as the request Accept header
public static class WebApiConfig
{
public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
var appXmlType = config.Formatters.XmlFormatter.SupportedMediaTypes.FirstOrDefault(t => t.MediaType == "application/xml");
config.Formatters.XmlFormatter.SupportedMediaTypes.Remove(appXmlType);
}
}
If you are not using the MVC project type and therefore did not have this class to begin with, see this answer for details on how to incorporate it.
I like Felipe Leusin's approach best - make sure browsers get JSON without compromising content negotiation from clients that actually want XML. The only missing piece for me was that the response headers still contained content-type: text/html. Why was that a problem? Because I use the JSON Formatter Chrome extension, which inspects content-type, and I don't get the pretty formatting I'm used to. I fixed that with a simple custom formatter that accepts text/html requests and returns application/json responses:
public class BrowserJsonFormatter : JsonMediaTypeFormatter
{
public BrowserJsonFormatter() {
this.SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue("text/html"));
this.SerializerSettings.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
}
public override void SetDefaultContentHeaders(Type type, HttpContentHeaders headers, MediaTypeHeaderValue mediaType) {
base.SetDefaultContentHeaders(type, headers, mediaType);
headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/json");
}
}
Register like so:
config.Formatters.Add(new BrowserJsonFormatter());