Return an object and control status code

Question

I upgraded from the ASP.NET Web API release on nuget.org (the version before the RC on Friday) to the nightly builds on myget.org. As expected there were many breaking changes, and one of them I can't seem to get around: We have a scenario where we want our action to return an object and set the status code to 201 Created. This was quite easily done before (might not compile - conceptual code from the top of my head):

Session session = GetSessionInfo(requestMessage);
var response = new HttpResonseMessage(HttpStatusCode.Created);
response.Content = response.CreateContent(session);
return response;

CreateContent was actually an extension method located in System.Net.Http.HttpResponseMessageExtensions calling an internal constructor in ObjectContent. With the new release HttpResponseMessageExtensions seems to be gone in the new release and so does the internal constructors of ObjectContent. Now it seems I must call an ObjectContent constructor, and the following seems to be the most appropriate for our needs:

public class ObjectContent<T> : ObjectContent
{
    public ObjectContent(T value, MediaTypeFormatter formatter)
    {
    }
}

However it seems I have to pass a MediaTypeFormatter into it, mixing content negotiation into the logic of the action. In our setup content negotiation is generic and completely decoupled from the controllers.

Does anyone have a suggestion for solving the scenario to return an object, set the response status code, but not have to deal with MediaTypeFormatter, media type or any other content negotiation related stuff?

Answer 1

We redesigned how ObjectContent<T> creation works. Starting with the RC, you should be calling the CreateResponse() set of extension methods (they're off HttpRequestMessage). This will actually produce an instance of HttpResponseMessage with an instance of a content-negotiated ObjectContent<T> inside. So, something like:

Session session = GetSessionInfo(requestMessage);
var response = Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.Created, session);
return response;