Sending Post request to RESTful WCF with json

Question

I have tried every combination to send a request to send a POST request to RESTful WCF from jQuery.

Can someone imitate and make it working. Code is here : http://pastebin.com/Ua97919C

I am working with WCF from past 2 years, but every time i send a POST request it makes me struggle a lot.

I am struggling to make it work from past 4 days and gone through atleast 35-40 posts.

Eventually, this request would be sent from iPhone to WCF.

When i check it with Fiddler the error mostly is: *The server encountered an error processing the request. The exception message is 'The incoming message has an unexpected message format 'Raw'. The expected message formats for the operation are 'Xml', 'Json'. This can be because a WebContentTypeMapper has not been configured on the binding. See the documentation of WebContentTypeMapper for more details.'. See server logs for more details. The exception stack trace is: at

System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.DemultiplexingDispatchMessageFormatter.DeserializeRequest(Message message, Object[] parameters)
   at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.UriTemplateDispatchFormatter.DeserializeRequest(Message message, Object[] parameters)
   at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.DispatchOperationRuntime.DeserializeInputs(MessageRpc& rpc)
   at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.DispatchOperationRuntime.InvokeBegin(MessageRpc& rpc)
   at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage5(MessageRpc& rpc)
   at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage31(MessageRpc& rpc)
   at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.MessageRpc.Process(Boolean isOperationContextSet)

Answer 1

Add a Global.ascx file in youe solution and replace the code with following

protected void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*");
    if (HttpContext.Current.Request.HttpMethod == "OPTIONS")
    {
        HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache");
        HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, POST");
        HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "Content-Type, Accept");
        HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Max-Age", "1728000");
        HttpContext.Current.Response.End();
    }
}

one more thing chnage dataType:'text'

$.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: "http://localhost:4638/Edulink.svc/SaveUserData",                        
    dataType: "text",
    contentType: "application/json",
    data:'{"EmailID":"praveen", "LevelID": 1}',         
    success:function(data, status) {             
        console.log(data); //gives 1                
    },
    error:function(request, status, error) {
        alert("o0ops");           
    }
});

Answer 2

The problem is the body style of the operation. You declared it as

[WebInvoke(
        Method = "POST",
        ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
        RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
        BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest,
        UriTemplate = "/SaveUserData")]
string SaveUserData(UserInfo userInfo);

meaning that the request must be wrapped in an object, with a member for the object name. If you send this request below, it should work.

$.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
    url: url,
    data: '{"userInfo":{"EmailID":"praveen", "LevelID": 1}}',
    dataType: "json",
    processData: false,
    success: function (data, textStatus, jqXHR) {
        debugger;
    },
    error: function (jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown) {
        debugger;
    }
});

Another alternative is to change the BodyStyle property of the operation to Bare, in which case your original request was correct.