Question

I’ve recently started using WCF WebApi to create a REST api. I followed samples available on CodePlex and also articles series by Alex Zeitler.

I tried to create a method which accepts data via POST as follows:

[ServiceContract]
public class AuthenticateApi
{
    [WebInvoke(UriTemplate = "", Method = "POST")]  
    public HttpResponseMessage<LoginModel> Post(LoginModel loginModel)
    {
        loginModel.IsValidated = true;
        return new HttpResponseMessage<LoginModel>(loginModel);
    }
}

And this is my Entity:

public class LoginModel
{
    public string Username { get; set; }
    public string Password { get; set; }
    public bool IsValidated { get; set; }
}

And finally this is my configuration in Global.asax:

public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
   routes.MapServiceRoute<AuthenticateApi>("login");
}
protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
   RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
}

When I try to POST something using Fiddler this way:

Content-Type: application/json
Accept: application/json
{"Username": "mahdi", "Password":"123"}
Host: localhost:8181

I receive the following error message:

The server encountered an error processing the request. The exception
message is ‘Specified value has invalid HTTP Header characters.
Parameter name: name’. See server logs for more details. The exception
stack trace is:

at System.Net.WebHeaderCollection.CheckBadChars(String name, Boolean
isHeaderValue) at System.Net.WebHeaderCollection.Add(String name,
String value) at
System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection.Add(NameValueCollection
c) at
System.ServiceModel.Activation.HostedHttpContext.HostedRequestContainer.System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpRequestMessageProperty.IHttpHeaderProvider.CopyHeaders(WebHeaderCollection
headers) at
System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpRequestMessageProperty.get_Headers()
at
Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Http.Channels.HttpMessageEncodingRequestContext.ConfigureRequestMessage(Message
message) in
F:\codeplex\wcf\Http\Src\Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Http\Microsoft\ApplicationServer\Http\Channels\HttpMessageEncodingRequestContext.cs:line
222 at
Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Http.Channels.HttpMessageEncodingRequestContext.get_RequestMessage()
in
F:\codeplex\wcf\Http\Src\Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Http\Microsoft\ApplicationServer\Http\Channels\HttpMessageEncodingRequestContext.cs:line
54 at
System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ChannelHandler.EnsureChannelAndEndpoint(RequestContext
request) at
System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ChannelHandler.TryRetrievingInstanceContext(RequestContext
request)

Any idea why this happens?

Answer 1

Put the JSON object in the request body field, not in with the headers.