ASP.Net Web API custom model binding with x-www-form-urlencoded posted data - nothing seems to work

Question

I am having a lot of trouble getting custom model binding to work when posting x-www-form-urlencoded data. I\'ve tried every way I can think of and nothing seems to

Answer 1

ModelBinder seem relatively better to use than MediaTypeFormatter. You do not need to register it globally.

I found another alternative to use model binder to bind complex object types in Web API. In model binder, I am reading request body as string and then using JSON.NET to deserialize it to required object type. It can be used to map array of complex object types as well.

I added a model binder as follows:

public class PollRequestModelBinder : IModelBinder
{
    public bool BindModel(HttpActionContext actionContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
    {
        var body = actionContext.Request.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result;
        var pollRequest = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(body);
        bindingContext.Model = pollRequest;
        return true;
    }
}

And then I am using it in Web API controller as follows:

    public async Task Post(Guid instanceId, [ModelBinder(typeof(PollRequestModelBinder))]PollRequest request)
    {
       // api implementation  
    }