I am using Swagger for Web API documentation.
In my Web API, I have entities as below:
public class BaseEntity
{
public string BaseEntProp1{get;set;}
public string BaseEntProp2{get;set;}
public virtual bool ShouldSerializeBaseEntProp1()
{
return true;
}
public virtual bool ShouldSerializeBaseEntProp1()
{
return true;
}
}
public class DerivedEntity1 : BaseEntity
{
[JsonIgnore]
public string DerEntProp1{get;set;}
public string DerEntProp2{get;set;}
public override bool ShouldSerializeBaseEntProp1()
{
return false;
}
public override bool ShouldSerializeBaseEntProp1()
{
return false;
}
}
I used DerivedEntity1 as the input parameter for a Web API method and generated the swagger documentation.
Until this it is fine but the problem is, DerivedEntity1 JSON string in that documentation shows both BaseEntProp1 & BaseEntProp2 which are supposed to be excluded. Can someone help me how to exclude those?
Note:
1. DerivedEntity1's DerEntProp1 property is properly excluded.
2. Just to confirm, in my Startup method after the documentation is generated, I have hardcoded following:
var temp = new DerivedEntity1 {
BaseEntProp1 = "should be ignored",
BaseEntProp2 = "this also should be ignored"};
string tempJson = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(temp);
Above test passed, i.e., tempJson doesn't have both BaseEntProp1 & BaseEntProp2. So, I suspect somehow SWAGGER is failing to call proper ShouldSerialize* methods. Any help is highly appreciated.
Thanks
Finally I solved it in a different way as the problem is not related to Swagger.
I have created base abstract classes with virtual properties. In derived classes I have overloaded those properties and decorated with JsonIgnore attribute. This solved my problem.
Related
In the code below there are two methods annotated with #GetMapping annotation, one expects empty path, another one expects a path variable.
#Controller
#RequestMapping("/")
public class BasicController {
#GetMapping()
public String get(Model model) {
// doing something
}
#GetMapping("/{variable}")
public String getWithPathVar(#PathVariable("variable") String variable, Model model) {
// doing something different
}
}
Problem: When the app is running and I hit "www.myurl.com/" it enters both methods even though there is no path parameter. How can I fix this?
If so it sounds like a bug or some misconfiguration with filters. I can't reproduce this behaviour on the Spring 5.2.7. Here's an article that explains how Spring works under the hood.
If you can't upgrade the Spring version you can use only single endpoint as a workaround.
#GetMapping("/{variable}")
public String getWithPathVar(#PathVariable("variable") String variable, Model model) {
// doing something different
if(variable != null) {
// fulfill the normal workflow
} else {
// call ex get() workflow
}
}
My swagger UI (version 2.8.0) is not inferring well my model:
Audience.class:
#JsonTypeInfo(use = JsonTypeInfo.Id.NAME, include = JsonTypeInfo.As.PROPERTY)
#JsonSubTypes({
#JsonSubTypes.Type(value = AudienceA.class, name = "AudienceA"),
#JsonSubTypes.Type(value = AudienceB.class, name = "AudienceB")
})
public interface Audience {
void doSomething();
}
AudienceA.class:
public class AudienceA implements Audience {
private String someStringField;
public AudienceA(){
}
#Override
public void doSomething(){
//do some stuff
}
public String getSomeStringField(){
return someStringField;
}
}
AudienceB.class:
Similar to AudienceA class.
SwaggerUI shows an empty model:
I was expecting something like displaying something about AudienceA or AudienceB model. Is this the expected behaviour of the UI?
Thanks.
Swagger has had its issues with polymorphism , especially Swagger 2.0. A lot of it these issues were corrected with Open API 3.0
You might want to look at following links to see how the polymorphism is handled in Open API 3.0
Open API 3.0 - https://swagger.io/docs/specification/data-models/inheritance-and-polymorphism/
Where as there is another post which probably addresses the issue mentioned by you here
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/swagger-swaggersocket/1z0f0pLplrM/WylVo2ioDAAJ
I have just implemented output caching of my Asp.Net Web API Controllers using StrathWeb's library connecting to the StackExchange.Redis library connecting through to an Azure-hosted Redis Cache.
I have written a custom class that implements the StrathWeb IApiOutputCache interface and calls the equivalent StackExchange methods. This is registered as the cache output provder in Global.asax.cs.
Here's an example of usage:
public class MyApiController : ApiController
{
private const int FIFTEEN_MINUTES_IN_SECONDS = 900;
[CacheOutput(ClientTimeSpan = FIFTEEN_MINUTES_IN_SECONDS, ServerTimeSpan = FIFTEEN_MINUTES_IN_SECONDS)]
async public Task<Data> GetAsync(int param1, string param2)
{
return await GetExpensiveData();
}
[Serializable]
public class Data
{
// Members omitted for brevity
}
}
When a call is made to the api endpoint I can see that the framework correctly calls all the required methods on my IApiOutputCache class: Contains, Set and Get. However, even when a cached copy is found and returned, the GetExpensiveData() method is always run and the 'fresh' data returned.
No errors are thrown. The cache seems to be working. Yet, my expensive code is always called.
Thanks for your help :).
Problem solved. I was incorrectly calling into Redis from my IApiOutputCache class.
Before...
public class AzureRedisApiOutputCache : IApiOutputCache
{
public object Get(string key)
{
return AzureRedisCache.Instance.GetDatabase().StringGet(key);
}
}
After...
public class AzureRedisApiOutputCache : IApiOutputCache
{
public object Get(string key)
{
// Call the extension method that also performs deserialization...
return AzureRedisCache.Instance.GetDatabase().Get(key);
}
}
public static class RedisDatabaseExtensions
{
public static object Get(this IDatabase cache, string key)
{
return Deserialize<object>(cache.StringGet(key));
}
}
This confused me for some time as the CacheOutput framework never reported an error. It just silently failed and fell back to the controller method.
I have a preexisting MVC app that I added Web API and Web API Self Documentation using Nuget. While the Web API controllers function fine (return valid responses to HTTP requests) the Help controller is not finding any Web API methods to document.
In the Help controller Index action "Configuration.Services.GetApiExplorer().ApiDescriptions" is returning with 0 results.
What populated ApiDescriptions and are there any config settings I need to set to expose my api to documentations?
The Help Area is a separate area from the rest of my application. Is this causing the piece that finds the Controllers to not find my controllers? Furthermore, I even added a help snipped to the HelpController itself, which still resulted in no API descriptions.
I do also have special routing for my API controllers, so I'm not sure if that's relevant.
After some more searching i found this post which also refers to this post
As mentioned in the first post, Glimpse is the culplit, this workaround solved the issue for me:
<glimpse defaultRuntimePolicy="On" endpointBaseUri="~/Glimpse.axd">
<inspectors>
<ignoredTypes>
<add type="Glimpse.AspNet.Inspector.RoutesInspector, Glimpse.AspNet"/>
</ignoredTypes>
</inspectors>
</glimpse>
This is also a known issue and the workaround is described on this Glimpse GitHub Issue.
I have the same problem and i don't use Glimpse and i solve the problem like this:
In the ProjectName\Areas\HelpPage\Controllers\HelpController.cs file comment the constructors because is not called the implicit constructor public HelpController() : this(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration) default is called the constructor with the parameter public HelpController(HttpConfiguration config) and this initialization of the Configuration property is incorect. And you cand solve this problem like this:
Solution 1:
Comment/Remove the constructors.
public class HelpController : Controller
{
private const string ErrorViewName = "Error";
// public HelpController()
// : this(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration)
// {
// }
// public HelpController(HttpConfiguration config)
// {
// Configuration = config;
// }
/// <summary>
/// GlobalConfiguration By default
/// </summary>
protected static HttpConfiguration Configuration
{
get { return GlobalConfiguration.Configuration; }
}
public ActionResult Index()
{
ViewBag.DocumentationProvider = Configuration.Services.GetDocumentationProvider();
return View(Configuration.Services.GetApiExplorer().ApiDescriptions);
}
....
Solution 2:
inject the default constructor by add this attribute [InjectionConstructor].
public class HelpController : Controller
{
private const string ErrorViewName = "Error";
[InjectionConstructor]
public HelpController()
: this(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration)
{
}
public HelpController(HttpConfiguration config)
{
Configuration = config;
}
/// <summary>
/// GlobalConfiguration By default
/// </summary>
protected static HttpConfiguration Configuration { get; private set; }
....
And problem solved.
I was able to solve this by adding GlobalConfiguration.Configure (WebApiConfig.Register); in my Application_Start () method. Because my application uses OWIN I was registering my APIs only in Startup.Configuration (IAppBuilder app).
After installing HelpPages package from NuGet package manager- Navigate to WebApplication1\Areas\HelpPage\App_Start\HelpPageConfig.cs and uncomment the line below
config.SetDocumentationProvider(new XmlDocumentationProvider(
HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/XmlDocument.xml")));
Also add App_Data/XmlDocument.xml to WebApplication > Properties > Build > Check XML Documentation File
I have a repository pattern i created on top of the ado.net entity framework. When i tried to implement StructureMap to decouple my objects, i kept getting StackOverflowException (infinite loop?). Here is what the pattern looks like:
IEntityRepository where TEntity : class
Defines basic CRUD members
MyEntityRepository : IEntityRepository
Implements CRUD members
IEntityService where TEntity : class
Defines CRUD members which return common types for each member.
MyEntityService : IEntityService
Uses the repository to retrieve data and return a common type as a result (IList, bool and etc)
The problem appears to be with my Service layer. More specifically with the constructors.
public PostService(IValidationDictionary validationDictionary)
: this(validationDictionary, new PostRepository())
{ }
public PostService(IValidationDictionary validationDictionary, IEntityRepository<Post> repository)
{
_validationDictionary = validationDictionary;
_repository = repository;
}
From the controller, i pass an object that implements IValidationDictionary. And i am explicitly calling the second constructor to initialize the repository.
This is what the controller constructors look like (the first one creates an instance of the validation object):
public PostController()
{
_service = new PostService(new ModelStateWrapper(this.ModelState));
}
public PostController(IEntityService<Post> service)
{
_service = service;
}
Everything works if i don't pass my IValidationDictionary object reference, in which case the first controller constructor would be removed and the service object would only have one constructor which accepts the repository interface as the parameter.
I appreciate any help with this :) Thanks.
It looks like the circular reference had to do with the fact that the service layer was dependent on the Controller's ModelState and the Controller dependent on the Service layer.
I had to rewrite my validation layer to get this to work. Here is what i did.
Define generic validator interface like below:
public interface IValidator<TEntity>
{
ValidationState Validate(TEntity entity);
}
We want to be able to return an instance of ValidationState which, obviously, defines the state of validation.
public class ValidationState
{
private readonly ValidationErrorCollection _errors;
public ValidationErrorCollection Errors
{
get
{
return _errors;
}
}
public bool IsValid
{
get
{
return Errors.Count == 0;
}
}
public ValidationState()
{
_errors = new ValidationErrorCollection();
}
}
Notice that we have an strongly typed error collection which we need to define as well. The collection is going to consist of ValidationError objects containing the property name of the entity we're validating and the error message associated with it. This just follows the standard ModelState interface.
public class ValidationErrorCollection : Collection<ValidationError>
{
public void Add(string property, string message)
{
Add(new ValidationError(property, message));
}
}
And here is what the ValidationError looks like:
public class ValidationError
{
private string _property;
private string _message;
public string Property
{
get
{
return _property;
}
private set
{
_property = value;
}
}
public string Message
{
get
{
return _message;
}
private set
{
_message = value;
}
}
public ValidationError(string property, string message)
{
Property = property;
Message = message;
}
}
The rest of this is StructureMap magic. We need to create validation service layer which will locate validation objects and validate our entity. I'd like to define an interface for this, since i want anyone using validation service to be completely unaware of the StructureMap presence. Besides, i think sprinkling ObjectFactory.GetInstance() anywhere besides the bootstrapper logic a bad idea. Keeping it centralized is a good way to insure good maintainability. Anyway, i use the decorator pattern here:
public interface IValidationService
{
ValidationState Validate<TEntity>(TEntity entity);
}
And we finally implement it:
public class ValidationService : IValidationService
{
#region IValidationService Members
public IValidator<TEntity> GetValidatorFor<TEntity>(TEntity entity)
{
return ObjectFactory.GetInstance<IValidator<TEntity>>();
}
public ValidationState Validate<TEntity>(TEntity entity)
{
IValidator<TEntity> validator = GetValidatorFor(entity);
if (validator == null)
{
throw new Exception("Cannot locate validator");
}
return validator.Validate(entity);
}
#endregion
}
I'm going to be using validation service in my controller. We could move it to the service layer and have StructureMap use property injection to inject an instance of controller's ModelState to the service layer, but i don't want the service layer to be coupled with ModelState. What if we decide to use another validation technique? This is why i'd rather put it in the controller. Here is what my controller looks like:
public class PostController : Controller
{
private IEntityService<Post> _service = null;
private IValidationService _validationService = null;
public PostController(IEntityService<Post> service, IValidationService validationService)
{
_service = service;
_validationService = validationService;
}
}
Here i am injecting my service layer and validaton service instances using StructureMap. So, we need to register both in StructureMap registry:
ForRequestedType<IValidationService>()
.TheDefaultIsConcreteType<ValidationService>();
ForRequestedType<IValidator<Post>>()
.TheDefaultIsConcreteType<PostValidator>();
That's it. I don't show how i implement my PostValidator, but it's simply implementing IValidator interface and defining validation logic in the Validate() method. All that's left to do is call your validation service instance to retrieve the validator, call the validate method on your entity and write any errors to ModelState.
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Create([Bind(Exclude = "PostId")] Post post)
{
ValidationState vst = _validationService.Validate<Post>(post);
if (!vst.IsValid)
{
foreach (ValidationError error in vst.Errors)
{
this.ModelState.AddModelError(error.Property, error.Message);
}
return View(post);
}
...
}
Hope i helped somebody out with this :)
I used a similar solution involving a generic implementor of IValidationDictionary uses a StringDictionary and then copied the errors from this back into the model state in the controller.
Interface for validationdictionary
public interface IValidationDictionary
{
bool IsValid{get;}
void AddError(string Key, string errorMessage);
StringDictionary errors { get; }
}
Implementation of validation dictionary with no reference to model state or anything else so structuremap can create it easily
public class ValidationDictionary : IValidationDictionary
{
private StringDictionary _errors = new StringDictionary();
#region IValidationDictionary Members
public void AddError(string key, string errorMessage)
{
_errors.Add(key, errorMessage);
}
public bool IsValid
{
get { return (_errors.Count == 0); }
}
public StringDictionary errors
{
get { return _errors; }
}
#endregion
}
Code in the controller to copy the errors from the dictionary into the model state. This would probably be best as an extension function of Controller.
protected void copyValidationDictionaryToModelState()
{
// this copies the errors into viewstate
foreach (DictionaryEntry error in _service.validationdictionary.errors)
{
ModelState.AddModelError((string)error.Key, (string)error.Value);
}
}
thus bootstrapping code is like this
public static void BootstrapStructureMap()
{
// Initialize the static ObjectFactory container
ObjectFactory.Initialize(x =>
{
x.For<IContactRepository>().Use<EntityContactManagerRepository>();
x.For<IValidationDictionary>().Use<ValidationDictionary>();
x.For<IContactManagerService>().Use<ContactManagerService>();
});
}
and code to create controllers is like this
public class IocControllerFactory : DefaultControllerFactory
{
protected override IController GetControllerInstance(RequestContext requestContext, Type controllerType)
{
return (Controller)ObjectFactory.GetInstance(controllerType);
}
}
Just a quick query on this. It's helped me out quite a lot so thanks for putting the answer up, but I wondered which namespace TEntity exists in? I see Colletion(TEntity) needs System.Collections.ObjectModel. My file compiles without anything further but I see your TEntity reference highlighted in Blue which suggests it has a class type, mine is Black in Visual Studio. Hope you can help. I'm pretty keen to get this working.
Have you found any way to seperate validation into the service layer at all? My gut tells me that validating in the Controller is a bit smelly but I've looked high and low to find a way to pass validation error messages back to the controller without tightly coupling the service layer to the controller and can't find anything. :(
Again, thanks for the great post!
Lloyd