How can I return an HttpStatusCode from an IQueryable <T>?

Question

I am coding a C# WebApi 2 web service and I have a question about returning an HttpStatusCode from the webservice IQueryable<T> function.

If the web service function returns a single object, you can easily use the following:

 public async Task<IHttpActionResult> GetItem(int id) { return Content(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized, "Any object"); } 

In the following situation, I'm not sure how to return the specified HttpStatusCode :

 public IQueryable<T> GetItems() { return Content(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized, "Any object"); } 

Can i help with this?

Answer 1

You can throw an HttpResponseException with the appropriate status code

 public IQueryable<T> GetItems() { throw new HttpResponseException(new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized) { Content = new StringContent("Any object") }); } 

Answer 2

In the first situation, you will still return an object in the Content method, for example:

 public IHttpActionResult GetItem(int id) { return Content(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized, "Any object"); } 

When this method is executed, you will see the "Any object" returned to the client. In Web API 2, IHttpActionResult is essentially a fancy factory around HttpResponseMessage . If you ignore that the return type of the method is IHttpActionResult , you can return IQueryable by replacing "Any object" with a query, for example:

 public IHttpActionResult GetItem(int id) { IQueryable<object> results; return Ok(results); } 

More information about the results of actions in the Web API can be found here:

http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/getting-started-with-aspnet-web-api/action-results