Question

How would I generate a URL to a specific service defined in ServiceStack?

I want to include full or relative URLs to other endpoints as part of the response DTO. RestServiceBase contains RequestContext.AbsoluteUri, but that is entirely dependent on the request.

Answer 1

Reverse Routing

The Reverse Routing section in the wiki shows how to use extension methods on a popualated Request DTO to generate relative and absolute URI’s:

If you use [Route] metadata attributes (as opposed to the Fluent API) you will be able to generate strong-typed URI’s using just the DTOs, letting you create urls outside of ServiceStack web framework as done with .NET Service Clients using the ToUrl(HttpMethod) and ToAbsoluteUri(HttpMethod), e.g:

[Route("/reqstars/search", "GET")]
[Route("/reqstars/aged/{Age}")]
public class SearchReqstars : IReturn<ReqstarsResponse>
{
    public int? Age { get; set; }
}

var relativeUrl = new SearchReqstars { Age = 20 }.ToGetUrl();
var absoluteUrl = new SearchReqstars { Age = 20 }.ToAbsoluteUri();

relativeUrl.Print(); //=  /reqstars/aged/20
absoluteUrl.Print(); //=  http://www.myhost.com/reqstars/aged/20

The Email Contacts demo shows an example of using the above Reverse Routing extension methods to populate routes for HTML Forms and Links in Razor Views.

Other Reverse Routing Extension methods

new RequestDto().ToPostUrl();
new RequestDto().ToPutUrl();
new RequestDto().ToDeleteUrl();
new RequestDto().ToOneWayUrl();
new RequestDto().ToReplyUrl();

Accessing Http Request

You can also inspect the incoming underlying httpRequest with:

var httpReq = base.RequestContext.Get<IHttpRequest>();

As well as the underlying ASP.NET (or HttpListener) Request object with:

var aspNetReq = httpReq.OriginalRequest;

They should contain additional properties that should be more useful.