Web Api 2 Inheritance No route providing a controller name was found to match request URI - entity-framework

Question

Basically I cannot get my Web Api 2 application to work.
First of all here are my requirements.
In my application I am creating a dozen of controllers ( ProductController, ItemController, SalesController...etc). There are 2 actions which are absolutely common in all my controllers:
FetchData, PostData
(Each controller then may implement a number of other methods which are sepcific to its business domain )
Instead of repeating these actions in every controllers like:
public class ProductController:ApiController{
[HttpPost]
public MyReturnJson FetchData( MyJsonInput Input){
....
return myJsonResult;
}
}
public class SalesController:ApiController{
[HttpPost]
public MyReturnJson FetchData( MyJsonInput Input){
....
return myJsonResult;
}
}
I decided to create a base controller MyBaseController:
public class MyBaseController : ApiController{
[HttpPost]
public MyReturnJson FetchData( MyJsonInput Input){
....
return myJsonResult;
}
}
with the 2 methods so every other controller would inherit them (It saves me from repeating them in every controller). The common base class has been defined and implemented in a separate assembly which is then referenced in my web project.
Then in my javascript client (using breeze) I call a specific controller like
breeze.EntityQuery.from('FetchData')
where my serviceName is 'my_api/product/'
(in the WebApiConfig, the routing table has been defined like:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "my_api",
routeTemplate: "my_api/{controller}/{action}"
);
But when the javascript code is executed I get the error message:
No route providing a controller name was found to match request URI
http://localhost:xxxxx/my_api/product/FetchData
If I don't use a common base class but instead repeat this method (FetchData) in every class (basically ProductController inherits directly from ApiController and not from MyBaseController) every thing works fine and my method is hit. I thing there is a problem with the inheritance scheme. Maybe there is something I don't get (first time using Web Api 2) or some constraints (routing, configuration...) I do not respect. Right now I am stuck and I would appreciate any suggestion which might point me to the right direction. Is inheritance allowed in Web Api 2?

Answer 1

I am not sure why your code is not working. But in the next link (http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/releases/whats-new-in-aspnet-web-api-22#ARI) you can see an example of inheritance using attribute routing.
This is the code example:
public class BaseController : ApiController
{
[Route("{id:int}")]
public string Get(int id)
{
return "Success:" + id;
}
}
[RoutePrefix("api/values")]
public class ValuesController : BaseController
{
}
config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes(new CustomDirectRouteProvider());
public class CustomDirectRouteProvider : DefaultDirectRouteProvider
{
protected override IReadOnlyList<IDirectRouteFactory>
GetActionRouteFactories(HttpActionDescriptor actionDescriptor)
{
return actionDescriptor.GetCustomAttributes<IDirectRouteFactory>
(inherit: true);
}
}
I hope that it helps.