How to make ASP.NET Core return XML result?

Question

[HttpGet]
[HttpPost]
public HttpResponseMessage GetXml(string value)
{
    var xml = $"<result><value>{value}</value></result>";
    return new HttpResponseMessage
   {
       Content = new StringContent(xml, Encoding.UTF8, "application/xml")
   };
}

I called the action using Swagger and passed this parameter 'text value'

Expected result should be an XML file like this: text value

Actual Result: strange json result without the passed value! https://www.screencast.com/t/uzcEed7ojLe

I tried the following solutions but did not work:

services.AddMvc().AddXmlDataContractSerializerFormatters();
services.AddMvc().AddXmlSerializerFormatters();

are you declaring this two attributes together [HttpGet] [HttpPost] ? — phonemyatt
– phonemyatt, Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 8:03
ASP.NET Core is a different beast to the old Web API, it does not natively work with or understand HttpResponseMessage. I also made the migration from web API -> Core and had to unlearn a lot of things like that before it started making sense to me. — Ian Kemp - SO dead by AI greed
– Ian Kemp - SO dead by AI greed, Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 8:24

Ⲁⲅⲅⲉⲗⲟⲥ · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-05 08:50:31Z

26

Try this solution

[HttpGet]
[HttpPost]
public ContentResult GetXml(string value)
{
    var xml = $"<result><value>{value}</value></result>";
    return new ContentResult
    {
        Content = xml,
        ContentType = "application/xml",
        StatusCode = 200
    };
}

answered Dec 5, 2019 at 8:50

Ⲁⲅⲅⲉⲗⲟⲥ

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Comments

phonemyatt · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-05 08:53:09Z

you are missing parameter in your attribute.
you can put produces attribute to declare what type of output format

you can embrace IActionResult or directly return ContentResult.

[HttpGet("{value}")]
[Produces("application/xml")]
public IActionResult GetXml(string value)
{
    var xml = $"<result><value>{value}</value></result>";
    //HttpResponseMessage response = new HttpResponseMessage();
    //response.Content = new StringContent(xml, Encoding.UTF8);
    //return response;

    return new ContentResult{
        ContentType = "application/xml",
        Content = xml,
        StatusCode = 200
    };
}

The above will give you

<result>
    <value>hello</value>
</result>

you can refer to following link to understand more about IActionResult

What should be the return type of WEB API Action Method?

Salah Akbari · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-06 08:51:04Z

2

For ASP.NET core 2+, you need to configure XmlDataContractSerializerOutputFormatter, it could be found from Nuget:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddMvc(c =>
    {
        c.OutputFormatters.Add(new XmlDataContractSerializerOutputFormatter());
    });
}

edited Dec 6, 2019 at 8:51

answered Dec 5, 2019 at 8:05

Salah Akbari

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