ASP.NET Web API: convert Object Literal to CLR class - asp.net-web-api

Question

My Web API controller needs to take in a property bag, i.e. a list of key-value pairs, which it will use to insert or update records of indeterminate type. My ideal code would look something like this. This example would be to insert a new record.
Route:
/api/data/{EntityName}
Data from client, passed in using jQuery.ajax() (or similar) with POST:
URI:
http://mysite/api/data/employee
Post data:
"values":
{"FirstName":"Jim",
"LasName":"Nobody",
"StartDate": new Date(),
"Salary": 100000 }
Web API Controller function:
public HttpResponseMessage PutRecord(string entity, ??? values)
{
// confirm valid entity, look up metadata.
// Take values from "values" and feed them into my framework to insert a new employee.
}
What is the ideal configuration to accomplish this? What would be the type for "values" in the controller method - possibly a Dictionary< string,object>?
Thanks very much for your help.

Answer 1

If you create a model that has all of the properties, the model binder will map your post data directly to the model.
So your post would look more like this:
$.post(url, {FirstName:'Jim', LasName: 'NoBody',StartDate: someDate, Salary: 10000},
function(data){
// do something with callback
});
And your action would look like:
public HttpResponseMessage PutRecord(string entity, employeeModel model)
{
// confirm valid entity, look up metadata.
// Take values from "values" and feed them into my framework to insert a new employee.
}
This is a tad more type safe than the property bag approach, and save you a lot of casting and typing issues.