Calling ASP.NET Web Api method with PHP - php

Question

I have the following web method in my web api controller
public HttpResponseMessage PostMakeBooking(FacilityBookingRequest bookingRequest)
{
var returnStatus = HttpStatusCode.OK;
var json = new JavaScriptSerializer().Serialize(bookingRequest);
var response = Request.CreateResponse<CardholderResponse>(returnStatus, cardholderResponse);
return response;
}
When I make this call from my .NET app, my json string appears correctly when I seralize it
{"correlationId":null,"RequestId":"7ec5092a-342a-4e32-9311-10e7df3e3683","BookingId":"BK-123102","CardholderId":"123456","BookingFrom":"\/Date(1370512706448)\/","BookingUntil":"\/Date(1370523506449)\/","DeviceId":"ACU-01-R2","Action":"Add","LoginId":"tester","Password":"tester"}
However, when I made to call from my php script
public function web_request(){
$guid =self::getGUID();
$replace = array("{","}");
$guid = str_replace($replace, "", $guid);
$client = new Zend_Rest_Client("http://203.92.72.221");
$request= new myZendCommon_FacilityBookingRequest();
$request->RequestId =$guid;
$request->BookingFrom ="27/03/2013 05:30";
$request->BookingUntil ="27/03/2013 06:30";
$request->CardholderId ="E0185963";
$request->DeviceId ="ACU-B2-01-R1";
$request->BookingId ="111";
$request->Action ="Add";
$request->LoginId ="tester";
$request->correlationId ="(null)";
$request->Password ="tester";
$request = json_encode($request);
$response = $client->restPost("/ibsswebapi/api/facilitybooking",$request);
print_r($response);
exit();
The call goes to my web method, but when I serialize it using JavaScriptSerializer().Serialize(bookingRequest)
{"correlationId":null,"RequestId":null,"BookingId":null,"CardholderId":null,"BookingFrom":"\/Date(-62135596800000)\/","BookingUntil":"\/Date(-62135596800000)\/","DeviceId":null,"Action":null,"LoginId":null,"Password":null}
All the values are null.
Is something wrong with the script?

Answer 1

I believe Kiran is right. Not sure why some one has felt his answer is not useful. Anyways, my understanding is that you are creating a JSON string and doing a form post of the same. I guess in this case the content type is sent as application/www-form-urlencoded but request body is a JSON string. You can use Fiddler to see how the request is being sent by the PHP script. I don't have the PHP knowledge to tell you how you can post JSON but my guess is that if you just remove the JSON encoding line $request = json_encode($request);, it should be okay.
From ASP.NET Web API point of view, if the request has Content-Type: application/json header and the body has the right JSON or if the request has Content-Type:application/www-form-urlencoded header and the body has the form url encoded content like RequestId=7ec5092a-342a-4e32-9311-10e7df3e3683&BookingId=BK-123102 and so on, web API will absolutely have no problem in binding. Currently, the request is not being sent in the right format for web API to bind.

Answer 2

Are you sending the header Content-Type:application/json in your request?
Also add the following piece of code to catch any model state validation errors:
.
if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
throw new HttpResponseException(
Request.CreateErrorResponse(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, this.ModelState));
}