How to make webapi accept a POST message with multiple JSON strings

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The code I'm working on is an API that sends out a text message and email when a generator shuts off. When the generator shuts off, a post request is sent with a machine name, post message, a list of emails, and a list of phone numbers. However, I'm not sure how to send the machine name, post messages, list of emails, phone numbers into a POST request AND have the POST request parse the list and send out the emails and texts. I have included my current code:

What I have tried:

Console app that sends the post message:

static async Task SendPost(string machineName, string postMessage, List<string> emailAddresses, List<string> phoneNumbers)
{
    string url = "https://localhost:44312/GeneratorStatus/";
    HttpClient client = new HttpClient();

    string name = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(machineName);
    string post= JsonConvert.SerializeObject(postMessage);
    string emails = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(emailAddresses);
    string phones = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(phoneNumbers);

    var jsonMessage= JsonConvert.SerializeObject(new[] 
              {JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(name),
                                                  
               JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(post),
                                                  
               JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(emails),
                                                  
               JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(phones) });

    var response = await client.PostAsync(url, new StringContent(jsonMessage, 
    Encoding.UTF8, "application/json"));
    Console.WriteLine(response);
}

My API Controller:

[HttpPost]
public void PostString([FromBody] string jsonString)
{
    emailList.SendEmail("fromEmail@gmail.com", <emails and phones> , <name>, <post>);
}

My question is just, how do I format my API controller so it is able to accept and parse the information of "jsonMessage" and then format it in the way I wanted above?

Posted 28-Sep-20 9:30am

stevenlam505

Updated 28-Sep-20 20:53pm

v2

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Comments

ZurdoDev 28-Sep-20 16:07pm

If all of the data is coming into jsonString, then you just need to google c# deserialize json string and you'll have lots of examples of how to parse it.

Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan 28-Sep-20 23:23pm

JSON is just there to help you with the data interchange between the server and the client application. If your client-side part contains the styling, then your server should have that as well.

I would like to recommend using email templates; either custom or mail vendor provided ones. They would help you in many ways.

Oh, and always try to prevent HTML content that is not validated for XSS and other forgery scripts, it would lead to a big trouble for your service in future.

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Pete O'Hanlon · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-28T20:54:00

The problem that you have here is that you're trying to hide a complex object inside a simple representation. Rather than passing a string around, you should make a data contract that encapsulates the email message. Something like this perhaps:

C#

[DataContract]
public class EmailMessage
{
  [DataMember(Name = "MachineName", EmitDefaultValue = false)]
  public string MachineName { get; set; }
  [DataMember(Name = "MachineName", EmitDefaultValue = false)]
  public string PostMessage { get; set; }
  [DataMember(Name = "MachineName", EmitDefaultValue = false)]
  public List<string> EmailAddresses { get; set; }
  [DataMember(Name = "MachineName", EmitDefaultValue = false)]
  public List<string> PhoneNumbers { get; set; }
}

With that in place, you use the EmailMessage to build up the email in your console application and change your ResponseBody from a string to EmailMessage.