Web API in ASP.Net Core: A Project-Based Step by Step Course

Identify prerequisites for the web api in ASP.NET Core, including basic familiarity with C sharp, web development, and a willingness to learn for a project-based journey.

Explore how the client-server model drives Web API communication, detailing get and post requests, server responses, and status codes such as 200 OK and 401 Unauthorized.

Explore essential tools for a robust web api in .NET Core, including Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Postman, and Fiddler, and start building your first webpage.

Set up a cross-platform ASP.NET Core web API project in Visual Studio, choose the API template, and explore a weather forecast controller with a get endpoint tested via Postman.

Scaffold an empty api controller named products, add an http get action, configure launch settings, and build and run to test returning a basic string to the client.

Explore routing in Web API using route attributes on controllers and actions, with tokens to replace names, and make id optional with a trailing question mark.

Create library models, including author and book, with properties like release date, title, genre, and bestseller flag, then add entity framework packages and build the data context to retrieve data.

Get a quick overview of the Entity Framework and how to use it to read and write data to an in-memory database, enabling resource creation.

Explore how Entity Framework, a cross-platform open source ORM for .NET, simplifies data access, maps results to application objects, and supports SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and in-memory testing.

Create a DbContext-derived context with DbSet properties for authors and books, seed data via a model builder extension, and register an in-memory database for API controllers to query data.

Create a catalogue controller for the web api, wiring the context via dependency injection, and add get actions for authors and books through api/catalogue endpoints with an in-memory database seed.

Learn to use IActionResult in a Web API to return data and status codes, such as OK and not found, and to build endpoints that fetch author data by id.

Update the Web API action to accept an id via the route, use Find to locate the author, and return not found when missing, or the author data when found.

Experiment with route data types in ASP.NET Core by passing integer or string IDs, enforcing {id:int} in the route, and note 400 bad requests or not found responses.

Explore asynchronous programming to boost performance and responsiveness by running long tasks without blocking the main thread, using parallel work and the async keyword to convert actions.

Convert endpoint actions from the datasource into asynchronous methods by adding the async keyword and awaiting Task results, letting the rest handle it.

Learn to implement pagination with skip and take to fetch a subset of database records, displaying ten items per page and skipping the first five as needed.

Learn to implement filtering in a web api by price range and genre, with optional filters for title, release date, and best seller, demonstrated on a book catalog.

Enable a search feature in the web api catalog by filtering books by title with a case-insensitive contains query parameter to return matching results.

Build on filtering, search, and pagination by implementing sorting in your Web API, with a step-by-step demonstration.

Add sorting to the web api catalog with a sort parameter and an isAscending flag. Leverage System.Linq.Dynamic.Core to order results by title or price in ascending or descending order.

Maps a boolean ascending to a string ascending or descending in a web api query, enabling sorting by title or price with a default ascending.

Explore adding sorting capabilities and implementing create operations via post requests to an in-memory database as part of the CRUD grid, within an ASP.NET Core web API.

Post data to create a new book record in an in-memory database using a post action, receiving book details from the body, saving changes, and returning the created record.

Explore implementing data validation from the user interface and enforce required fields in models to prevent bad data from reaching the API.

Apply data validation in an ASP.NET Core web API using data annotations to require titles, enforce length, and provide custom errors, while validating query parameters like page and size.

Learn how to update an existing record in an ASP.NET Core web API using PUT, including id-based URL routing, JSON payload, and handling no-content responses.

Validate the book exists, remove it from the in-memory context, save changes, and return no content to confirm successful deletion.

Explore three API versioning options: URL versioning embeds the version in the path, header versioning uses a custom header, and query string versioning passes the version as a query parameter.

Implement api versioning in asp.net core using a custom header and configure services. Switch between version 1.0 and 2.0 using the header to return appropriate results.

Demonstrate api versioning in a asp.net core project using a query string to switch between versions; test with postman to see versioned results.

Learn how to secure web API endpoints using JWT in ASP.NET Core, safeguarding backend data and preventing unauthorized access through practical, project-based steps.

Secure endpoints by applying the authorize attribute and defining an authorization schema, then add JWT and NuGet packages to enable authentication.

Install the jwt packages and configure the app for jwt authentication, setting issuer and audience for token validation, while recognizing the client issues the token for the audience.

continue configuring jwt by defining a signing key as a symmetric security key, secure it in a vault, enable authentication and authorization, then generate a token to access a resource.

Generate a JWT token to access a secured endpoint in an ASP.NET Core API using a helper class, a secret key, and the 256 algorithm with a one-minute expiry.

Address warnings in the catalog's controller using quick fixes via the bulb icon, add missing usings, remove unused namespaces, and ensure zero errors and warnings, keeping the solution clean.