How can I send a cookie from a Web.Api controller method

Question

I have a Web.Api service which has a method that accepts a custom class and returns another custom class:

public class TestController : ApiController {     public CustomResponse Post([FromBody]CustomRequest request)     {         // process request         ...         // create response         CustomResponse resp = new CustomResponse() { ... };         return resp;     } } 

Now I want to also send a cookie back as part of the Http response. How can I do that?

Answer 1

I managed to do this by combining information from a few different locations. First, in order to easily be able to send cookies in the response, the Web.Api controller should return an instance of the System.Net.Http.HttpResponseMessage class (link):

public class TestController : ApiController {     public HttpResponseMessage Post([FromBody]CustomRequest request)     {         var resp = new HttpResponseMessage();         ...          //create and set cookie in response         var cookie = new CookieHeaderValue("customCookie", "cookieVal");         cookie.Expires = DateTimeOffset.Now.AddDays(1);         cookie.Domain = Request.RequestUri.Host;         cookie.Path = "/";         resp.Headers.AddCookies(new CookieHeaderValue[] { cookie });          return resp;     } } 

But then how do I make sure that I can easily ALSO send back the CustomResponse?

The trick is in the answer to this question. Use the Request.CreateResponse<T> method on the request object. The whole deal then becomes:

public class TestController : ApiController {     public HttpResponseMessage Post([FromBody]CustomRequest request)     {         // process request         ...          var resp = Request.CreateResponse<CustomResponse>(             HttpStatusCode.OK,             new CustomResponse() { ... }         );          //create and set cookie in response         var cookie = new CookieHeaderValue("customCookie", "cookieVal");         cookie.Expires = DateTimeOffset.Now.AddDays(1);         cookie.Domain = Request.RequestUri.Host;         cookie.Path = "/";         resp.Headers.AddCookies(new CookieHeaderValue[] { cookie });          return resp;     } }