How to use an external Json File to serve as a data source for webapi

Question

Following is my code snippet which works fine, my query follows the code:

Model:

namespace CVHub.Models
{
    [DataContract]
    public class Context
    {
        [DataMember]
        public int sessionID { get; set; }
        [DataMember]
        public string Name { get; set; }

        public static List <Context> Contexts= new List<Context>
        {

            new Context{sessionID=1,Name="Name1"},
            new Context {sessionID=2,Name="Name2"},
            new Context {sessionID=3,Name="Name3"}
        };
    }
}

Controller:

namespace CVHub.Controllers
{
    public class ContextController : ApiController
    {
        List<Context> items;
        // GET api/values
        public IEnumerable<Context> Get()
        {
            //return Context.Contexts;
            return items;
        }
    }
}

Question: I want to use an external json file (residing in app_data folder) to serve same data instead of doing new Context{sessionID=1,Name="Name1"}, how to use a data I read from json file? I am very new to MVC and webApi, so it will be of great help if the experts can post the entire working code or as much details as possible please.

Answer 1

You can return a HttpResponseMessage with your JSON file loaded into StringContent.

public class JsonFileController : ApiController
{
    public HttpResponseMessage Get()
    {
        var json = File.ReadAllText(Server.MapPath(@"~/App_Data/contexts.json");

        return new HttpResponseMessage()
        {
            Content = new StringContent(json, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json"),
            StatusCode = HttpStatusCode.OK
        };
    }
}

App_Data/contexts.json

[
    {
        "sessionId": 1,
        "name": "name1"
    },
    {
        "sessionId": 2,
        "name": "name2"
    },
    {
        "sessionId": 3,
        "name": "name3"
    }
]