ASP.NET WEB API

ASP.NET Web API

The ASP.NET Web API is an extensible framework for building HTTP based services that can be accessed in different applications on different platforms such as web, windows, mobile etc. It works more or less the same way as ASP.NET MVC web application except that it sends data as a response instead of html view. It is like a webservice or WCF service but the exception is that it only supports HTTP protocol.

ASP.NET Web API Characteristics

• Ideal platform for building RESTful services.
• Uuilt on top of ASP.NET and supports ASP.NET request/response pipeline
• Maps HTTP verbs to method names.
• Supports different formats of response data. Built-in support for JSON, XML, BSON format.
• Can be hosted in IIS, Self-hosted or other web server that supports .NET 4.0+.
• Framework includes new HttpClient to communicate with Web API server. HttpClient can be used in ASP.MVC server side, Windows Form application, Console application or other apps.