Question

In ASP.NET MVC, Controller class has only a limited set of methods to use to return something from an action.

There is a HttpNotFoundResult HttpNotFound() method, but no other methods for errors.

What’s really inside HttpNotFound()? How to write a similar method for other error codes, like 401 Unauthorized or 403 Forbidden or 406 Not Acceptable?

Answer 1

It is implemented this way:

public class HttpNotFoundResult : HttpStatusCodeResult
{
    public HttpNotFoundResult() : this(null)
    {
    }

    public HttpNotFoundResult(string statusDescription) : 
           base(HttpStatusCode.NotFound, statusDescription)
    {
    }
}

When executed, HttpStatusCodeResult simply sets status code and status description to context.HttpContext.Response. You can inherit from HttpStatusCodeResult class and create your own results. E.g.

public class HttpUnauthorizedResult : HttpStatusCodeResult
{
    public HttpUnauthorizedResult() : this(null)
    {
    }

    public HttpUnauthorizedResult(string statusDescription) : 
           base(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized, statusDescription)
    {
    }
}