Question

I have a WebApi project and I am trying to add an area to it.

Is there something different that needs to be done when adding a new area to a webapi project vs a mvc4 application?

I have a simple area registration like

 public class MobileAreaRegistration : AreaRegistration
{
    public override string AreaName
    {
        get
        {
            return "Mobile";
        }
    }

    public override void RegisterArea(AreaRegistrationContext context)
    {
        context.MapRoute(
            "Mobile_default",
            "Mobile/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }

        );
    }
}

A controller like

  public class BusinessDetailsController : BaseController
{
    public string Index()
    {
        return "hello world";
    }
    public HttpResponseMessage Get()
    {
        var data = new List<string> {"Store 1", "Store 2", "Store 3"};
        return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, data);
    }
}

However I can never reach the api. Am I doing something stupid or is there an extra step with the webapi that needs to be done?

Answer 1

Your code registers an MVC route for the Area, not a Web API route.

To do that use the MapHttpRoute extension method (you’ll need to add a using statement for System.Web.Http).

    public override void RegisterArea(AreaRegistrationContext context)
    {
        context.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
            name: "AdminApi",
            routeTemplate: "admin/api/{controller}/{id}",
            defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
        );

        context.MapRoute(
            "Admin_default",
            "Admin/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
        );
    }

However, Areas are not really supported OOTB in ASP.NET Web API and you’ll get an exception if you have two controllers with the same name (regardless of whether they are in different areas).

To support this scenario you need to change the way that controllers are selected. You’ll find an article that covers how to do this here.