Passing an object as parameter to Breeze controller action - asp.net-web-api

Question

I'm trying to send an object as a parameter through Breeze without success.
Using the following code I can send a primitive type:
Client:
var query = EntityQuery
.from('account/authenticate')
.withParameters({ loginRequest: "hello" });
Server:
[BreezeController]
public class AccountController : ApiController
{
[HttpGet]
public LoginResult Authenticate(string loginRequest)
{
// String for loginRequest received successfully
}
}
However, if I try and pass a complex type up, the param is always null:
Client:
var loginRequest = { userName: 'me', password: 'pass' };
var query = EntityQuery
.from('account/authenticate')
.withParameters({ loginRequest: loginRequest });
Server:
[BreezeController]
public class AccountController : ApiController
{
[HttpGet]
public LoginResult Authenticate(LoginRequest loginRequest)
{
// Object for loginRequest always null
}
}
I believe this is in part because Breeze always uses a GET for queries. A POST might handle the serialization correctly, but I can't see any way in the Breeze API to force a POST.
If I pass up a JSON string representation of the object I can pick it up server-side, but this requires manual deserialization. I realise I could do this outside of Breeze with a standard WebAPI call, but I'm trying to keep all of my server-side calls running through the same pipeline.
Is it possible to do this?

Answer 1

You may be missing a [FromUri] attribute. Any time I tried to pass a more complex object or set of parameters everything would come back as null until I added that attribute.
[BreezeController]
public class AccountController : ApiController
{
[HttpGet]
public LoginResult Authenticate([FromUri] LoginRequest loginRequest)
{
// Object for loginRequest always null
}
}

Answer 2

Why not use ->
var loginRequest = { userName: 'me', password: 'pass' };
var query = EntityQuery
.from('account/authenticate')
.withParameters( loginRequest);
instead of
var loginRequest = { userName: 'me', password: 'pass' };
var query = EntityQuery
.from('account/authenticate')
.withParameters({ loginRequest: loginRequest });