Can I use ASP.NET MVC3 exclusively as a RESTful Web Service?

Question

I'm building a READ ONLY sencha-touch app for our local church.

We use Vimeo to host all of our videos, and I'd like to integrate our Vimeo vids as well as our RSS feed into our web app.

The rest of the "content" in the app will be static "info" as well as a contact form.

My question is, is it kosher to ONLY use ASP.NET MVC3 (minus the "V") to drive the JSON to our web app?

Answer 1

Yes, this works great. Just return a JsonResult.

Here is an example I am using in production:

 public partial class StudentController : BaseController {
    public StudentController(RESTContext portalContext)
        : base(portalContext) { }

    [HttpGet, Url("organizations/{organizationId?}/students")]
    public virtual JsonResult List(Guid? organizationId) {
        if (organizationId != RESTContext.OrganizationId)
            throw new HttpNotAuthorizedException();

        var query = RESTContext.GetQuery<IQuery<StudentCasesReport>>()
            .Where(x => x.OrganizationId, organizationId)
            .OrderBy(x => x.LastName, SortOrder.Ascending);
        var cases = query.Execute(IsolationLevel.ReadUncommitted);

        return Json(cases, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
    }

    [HttpGet, Url("organizations/{organizationId?}/students/{studentId?}")]
    public virtual JsonResult Get(Guid? organizationId, Guid? studentId) {
        if (studentId.IsNull())
            throw new HttpNotFoundExecption();

        if (organizationId != RESTContext.OrganizationId)
            throw new HttpNotModifiedException();

        var query = RESTContext.GetQuery<IQuery<StudentCasesReport>>()
            .Where(x => x.OrganizationId, organizationId)
            .Where(x => x.StudentCaseId, studentId)
            .OrderBy(x => x.LastName, SortOrder.Ascending);
        var cases = query.Execute(IsolationLevel.ReadUncommitted).FirstOrDefault();

        if (cases.IsNull())
            throw new HttpNotFoundExecption();

        return Json(cases, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
    }
}