No action was found on the controller that matches the request

Question

Please excuse my ignorance in this area. I have read many threads and still cannot get my routing correct.

I have a ProductsController like this:

public class ProductsController : ApiController
{
    [ActionName("GetListOfStudents")]
    public static List<Structures.StudentInfo> GetListOfStudents(string Username, string Password)
    {
        List<Structures.StudentInfo> si = StudentFunctions.GetListOfStudents(Username, Password);
        return si;
    }
}

I have a console test program where I have defined the route:

config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "ApiByAction",
routeTemplate: "api/products/GetListOfStudents",
defaults: new { controller = "products", action = "GetListOfStudents" });

But when I run call

GET http://localhost:8080/api/Products/GetListOfStudents

I get the error message:

MessageDetail=No action was found on the controller 'Products' that matches the name 'GetListOfStudents'.

I have been pulling my hair out and cannot work out what the correct route should be.

Would any kind person care to help me out?

Answer 1

Ok- thanks for the help peeps!

This what I did to get it working:

1. Removed the "static" from the GetListOfStudents function.
2. Added the route below.

config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
  name: "ApiByAction",
  routeTemplate: "api/products/GetListOfStudents/{username}/{password}",
  defaults: new { controller = "products", action = "GetListOfStudents" }
);

Thanks everyone for your help!

Answer 2

When registering your global api access point, you should tell the config which route to use in the following manner:

config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "ApiByAction",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}
defaults: new { controller = "products", action = "GetListOfStudents" });

In this sample you explicitly tell the controller it should only go to the "products" controller, you can make it generic without specifying the control or the action, just omit the defaults, like this:

config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "ApiByAction",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}

That should do the job :)