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Introduction

OData is defined as "An open protocol to allow for the creation and consumption of queryable and interoperable RESTful APIs in a simple and standard way". See odata.org. You can use OData with ASP.NET Boilerplate.

The Abp.Web.Api.OData NuGet package simplifies its usage.

Setup

Install NuGet Package

We should first install the Abp.Web.Api.OData NuGet package to our WebApi project:

Install-Package Abp.Web.Api.OData

Set Module Dependency

We should set the dependency to AbpWebApiODataModule from our module. Example:

[DependsOn(typeof(AbpWebApiODataModule))]
public class MyProjectWebApiModule : AbpModule
{
    ...
}

See the module system documentation to understand module dependencies.

Configure Your Entities

OData requires you to declare entities which can be used as OData resources. We should do this in the PreInitialize method of our module, as shown below:

[DependsOn(typeof(AbpWebApiODataModule))]
public class MyProjectWebApiModule : AbpModule
{
    public override void PreInitialize()
    {
        var builder = Configuration.Modules.AbpWebApiOData().ODataModelBuilder;

        // Configure your entities here...
        builder.EntitySet<Person>("Persons");
    }

    ...
}

Here, we get the ODataModelBuilder reference and set the Person entity. Similarly, you can use EntitySet to add other entities. See the OData documentation for more information on the builder.

Create Controllers

Abp.Web.Api.OData NuGet package includes the AbpODataEntityController base class (which extends standard ODataController) to create your controllers easily.

Here's an example on how to create an OData endpoint for the Person entity:

public class PersonsController : AbpODataEntityController<Person>, ITransientDependency 
{
    public PersonsController(IRepository<Person> repository)
        : base(repository)
    {
    }
}

It's that easy. All the methods of AbpODataEntityController are virtual. That means you can override Get, Post, Put, Patch, Delete and other actions and add your own logic.

Configuration

Abp.Web.Api.OData automatically calls HttpConfiguration.MapODataServiceRoute method with the conventional configuration. If you need to, you can set the Configuration.Modules.AbpWebApiOData().MapAction to map OData routes yourself.

Examples

Here are some example requests to the controller defined above. Assume that the application works on http://localhost:61842. We will show you some basics. Since OData is a standard protocol, you can easily find more advanced examples on the web.

Getting a List of Entities

Getting all people.

Request
GET http://localhost:61842/odata/Persons
Response
{
  "@odata.context":"http://localhost:61842/odata/$metadata#Persons","value":[
    {
      "Name":"Douglas Adams","IsDeleted":false,"DeleterUserId":null,"DeletionTime":null,"LastModificationTime":null,"LastModifierUserId":null,"CreationTime":"2015-11-07T20:12:39.363+03:00","CreatorUserId":null,"Id":1
    },{
      "Name":"John Nash","IsDeleted":false,"DeleterUserId":null,"DeletionTime":null,"LastModificationTime":null,"LastModifierUserId":null,"CreationTime":"2015-11-07T20:12:39.363+03:00","CreatorUserId":null,"Id":2
    }
  ]
}

Getting a Single Entity

Getting the person with Id = 2.

Request
GET http://localhost:61842/odata/Persons(2)
Response
{
  "@odata.context":"http://localhost:61842/odata/$metadata#Persons/$entity","Name":"John Nash","IsDeleted":false,"DeleterUserId":null,"DeletionTime":null,"LastModificationTime":null,"LastModifierUserId":null,"CreationTime":"2015-11-07T20:12:39.363+03:00","CreatorUserId":null,"Id":2
}

Getting a Single Entity With Navigation Properties

Getting the person with Id = 1 including his phone numbers.

Request
GET http://localhost:61842/odata/Persons(1)?$expand=Phones
Response
{
  "@odata.context":"http://localhost:61842/odata/$metadata#Persons/$entity","Name":"Douglas Adams","IsDeleted":false,"DeleterUserId":null,"DeletionTime":null,"LastModificationTime":null,"LastModifierUserId":null,"CreationTime":"2015-11-07T20:12:39.363+03:00","CreatorUserId":null,"Id":1,"Phones":[
    {
      "PersonId":1,"Type":"Mobile","Number":"4242424242","CreationTime":"2015-11-07T20:12:39.363+03:00","CreatorUserId":null,"Id":1
    },{
      "PersonId":1,"Type":"Mobile","Number":"2424242424","CreationTime":"2015-11-07T20:12:39.363+03:00","CreatorUserId":null,"Id":2
    }
  ]
}

Querying

Here's a more advanced query that includes filtering, sorting and getting the top 2 results.

Request
GET http://localhost:61842/odata/Persons?$filter=Name eq 'Douglas Adams'&$orderby=CreationTime&$top=2
Response
{
  "@odata.context":"http://localhost:61842/odata/$metadata#Persons","value":[
    {
      "Name":"Douglas Adams","IsDeleted":false,"DeleterUserId":null,"DeletionTime":null,"LastModificationTime":null,"LastModifierUserId":null,"CreationTime":"2015-11-07T20:12:39.363+03:00","CreatorUserId":null,"Id":1
    },{
      "Name":"Douglas Adams","IsDeleted":false,"DeleterUserId":null,"DeletionTime":null,"LastModificationTime":null,"LastModifierUserId":null,"CreationTime":"2016-01-12T20:29:03+02:00","CreatorUserId":null,"Id":3
    }
  ]
}

OData supports paging, sorting, filtering, projections and much more. See the OData documentation for more information.

Creating a New Entity

In this example, we're creating a new person.

Request
POST http://localhost:61842/odata/Persons

{
    Name: "Galileo Galilei"
}

Here, the "Content-Type" header is "application/json".

Response
{
  "@odata.context": "http://localhost:61842/odata/$metadata#Persons/$entity",
  "Name": "Galileo Galilei",
  "IsDeleted": false,
  "DeleterUserId": null,
  "DeletionTime": null,
  "LastModificationTime": null,
  "LastModifierUserId": null,
  "CreationTime": "2016-01-12T20:36:04.1628263+02:00",
  "CreatorUserId": null,
  "Id": 4
}

If we get the list again, we can see the new person. We can also update or delete an existing entity as OData supports it.

Getting MetaData

We can get the metadata of entities, as shown in this example.

Request
GET http://localhost:61842/odata/$metadata
Response
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<edmx:Edmx Version="4.0" xmlns:edmx="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edmx">

    <edmx:DataServices>

        <Schema Namespace="AbpODataDemo.People" xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edm">

            <EntityType Name="Person">

                <Key>

                    <PropertyRef Name="Id" />

                </Key>

                <Property Name="Name" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="false" />

                <Property Name="IsDeleted" Type="Edm.Boolean" Nullable="false" />

                <Property Name="DeleterUserId" Type="Edm.Int64" />

                <Property Name="DeletionTime" Type="Edm.DateTimeOffset" />

                <Property Name="LastModificationTime" Type="Edm.DateTimeOffset" />

                <Property Name="LastModifierUserId" Type="Edm.Int64" />

                <Property Name="CreationTime" Type="Edm.DateTimeOffset" Nullable="false" />

                <Property Name="CreatorUserId" Type="Edm.Int64" />

                <Property Name="Id" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false" />

                <NavigationProperty Name="Phones" Type="Collection(AbpODataDemo.People.Phone)" />

            </EntityType>

            <EntityType Name="Phone">

                <Key>

                    <PropertyRef Name="Id" />

                </Key>

                <Property Name="PersonId" Type="Edm.Int32" />

                <Property Name="Type" Type="AbpODataDemo.People.PhoneType" Nullable="false" />

                <Property Name="Number" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="false" />

                <Property Name="CreationTime" Type="Edm.DateTimeOffset" Nullable="false" />

                <Property Name="CreatorUserId" Type="Edm.Int64" />

                <Property Name="Id" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false" />

                <NavigationProperty Name="Person" Type="AbpODataDemo.People.Person">

                    <ReferentialConstraint Property="PersonId" ReferencedProperty="Id" />

                </NavigationProperty>

            </EntityType>

            <EnumType Name="PhoneType">

                <Member Name="Unknown" Value="0" />

                <Member Name="Mobile" Value="1" />

                <Member Name="Home" Value="2" />

                <Member Name="Office" Value="3" />

            </EnumType>

        </Schema>

        <Schema Namespace="Default" xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edm">

            <EntityContainer Name="Container">

                <EntitySet Name="Persons" EntityType="AbpODataDemo.People.Person" />

            </EntityContainer>

        </Schema>

    </edmx:DataServices>

</edmx:Edmx>

Metadata is used to investigate the service.

Sample Project

You can see the source code of the sample project here: https://github.com/aspnetboilerplate/sample-odata