Cannot pass string collection to API controller

Question

I want to pass a collection of strings to an API endpoint:

[HttpGet]
public DashboardSectionViewModel GetDashboard(
    DateTime lowerBound,
    DateTime upperBound,
    [FromUri] List<string> excludedStores = null,
    [FromUri] List<string> excludedItems = null)
{
    //Code
}

Here is where I make the call:

$.ajax({
    url: App.Services.updateUrl + src.updateUrl,
    type: "GET",
    data: {
        lowerBound: self.slideFilter.lowerBoundDisplay(),
        upperBound: self.slideFilter.upperBoundDisplay(),
        excludedStores: self.storeFilter.excludedStores(),
        excludedItems: self.experienceFilter.excludedItems()
    }
});

It works just fine when the two collection items are not parameters and are not passed by the AJAX request. It didn't work when I initially used IEnumerable<string> and changing to List<string> did not work either. Do I need to set a custom route for this to work? Will the interpreter get DateTime but not IEnumerable<T>?

EDIT: Here is the URL being generated with empty collections passed:

(header)/api/ContentApi/GetDashboard?lowerBound=10-12&upperBound=10-23

Here is the URL being generated with some collection items passed:

(header)/api/ContentApi/GetDashboard?lowerBound=10-10&upperBound=10-23&excludedStores%5B%5D=hello&excludedStores%5B%5D=world&excludedExperiences%5B%5D=hello&excludedExperiences%5B%5D=world

I think this is a serialization issue, but I'm not certain.

Tried sticking the parameters into a class, and have only one object as a parameter to your API method? — Arve Systad
– Arve Systad, Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 22:53
I didn't think this would work since it isn't interpreting the collections correctly. After having tested it, it isn't interpreting the object either. — jokul
– jokul, Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 22:58
Instead of passing a list of strings, try to pass the value as a string and use a tokenizer inside the method to split the string into an enumerable of strings. — Kenneth Bastian
– Kenneth Bastian, Commented Nov 14, 2014 at 2:41

peco · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-21 07:45:01Z

In order for web api to bind to your action parameters your query should look like this:

?lowerBound=10-12&upperBound=10-20&excludedStores=hello&excludedStores=world&excludedItems=hello&excludedItems=world

This will bind to the parameters in your action:

public DashboardSectionViewModel Get(DateTime lowerBound, DateTime upperBound, [FromUri]List<string> excludedStores = null, [FromUri]List<string> excludedItems = null)

To create your query you will have to invoke $.param() and then replace the url encoded [] characters. Like this:

var query = $.param({
    lowerBound: '10-12',
    upperBound: '10-20',
    excludedStores: ['hello', 'world'],
    excludedItems: ['hello', 'world']
}).replace(/%5B%5D/g, '')

$.ajax({
    url: App.Services.updateUrl + src.updateUrl + '?' + query,
    type: "GET"
});

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