I have a following model:
public class MyJson
{
public string Test{get;set;}
}
public class Dto
{
public IFormFile MyFile {get;set;}
public MyJson MyJson {get;set;}
}
On the client side I want to send a file and a json. So I send it in formData with following keys:
var formData = new FormData();
formData["myFile"] = file//here is my file
formData["myJson"] = obj; // object to be serialized to json.
My action looks like this:
public void MyAction(Dto dto) // or with [FromForm], doesn't really matter
{
//dto.MyJson is null here
//dto.myFile is set correctly.
}
if I change dto.MyJson
to be a string then it work perfectly fine however I have to deserialize it manually into my object manually in the action. The second issue with having it as a string is that I can't use swagger UI to handle it properly because it will ask me for a json string instead of object, anyway having it as a string just doesn't sound right. Is there a native way to handle json and file properly in action parameters instead of parsing it manually with Request.Form
?
This can be accomplished using a custom model binder:
public class FormDataJsonBinder : IModelBinder
{
public Task BindModelAsync(ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
{
if(bindingContext == null) throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(bindingContext));
// Fetch the value of the argument by name and set it to the model state
string fieldName = bindingContext.FieldName;
var valueProviderResult = bindingContext.ValueProvider.GetValue(fieldName);
if(valueProviderResult == ValueProviderResult.None) return Task.CompletedTask;
else bindingContext.ModelState.SetModelValue(fieldName, valueProviderResult);
// Do nothing if the value is null or empty
string value = valueProviderResult.FirstValue;
if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(value)) return Task.CompletedTask;
try
{
// Deserialize the provided value and set the binding result
object result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(value, bindingContext.ModelType);
bindingContext.Result = ModelBindingResult.Success(result);
}
catch(JsonException)
{
bindingContext.Result = ModelBindingResult.Failed();
}
return Task.CompletedTask;
}
}
You can then use the ModelBinder
attribute in your DTO class to indicate that this binder should be used to bind the MyJson
property:
public class Dto
{
public IFormFile MyFile {get;set;}
[ModelBinder(BinderType = typeof(FormDataJsonBinder))]
public MyJson MyJson {get;set;}
}
Note that you also need to serialize your JSON data from correctly in the client:
const formData = new FormData();
formData.append(`myFile`, file);
formData.append('myJson', JSON.stringify(obj));
The above code will work, but you can also go a step further and define a custom attribute and a custom IModelBinderProvider
so you don't need to use the more verbose ModelBinder
attribute each time you want to do this. Note that I have re-used the existing [FromForm]
attribute for this, but you could also define your own attribute to use instead.
public class FormDataJsonBinderProvider : IModelBinderProvider
{
public IModelBinder GetBinder(ModelBinderProviderContext context)
{
if(context == null) throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(context));
// Do not use this provider for binding simple values
if(!context.Metadata.IsComplexType) return null;
// Do not use this provider if the binding target is not a property
var propName = context.Metadata.PropertyName;
var propInfo = context.Metadata.ContainerType?.GetProperty(propName);
if(propName == null || propInfo == null) return null;
// Do not use this provider if the target property type implements IFormFile
if(propInfo.PropertyType.IsAssignableFrom(typeof(IFormFile))) return null;
// Do not use this provider if this property does not have the FromForm attribute
if(!propInfo.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(FromForm), false).Any()) return null;
// All criteria met; use the FormDataJsonBinder
return new FormDataJsonBinder();
}
}
You will need to add this model binder provider to your startup config before it will be picked up:
services.AddMvc(options =>
{
// add custom model binders to beginning of collection
options.ModelBinderProviders.Insert(0, new FormDataJsonBinderProvider())
});
Then your DTO can be a bit simpler:
public class Dto
{
public IFormFile MyFile {get;set;}
[FromForm]
public MyJson MyJson {get;set;}
}
You can read more about custom model binding in the ASP.NET Core documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/mvc/advanced/custom-model-binding