Content type providers

A content type provider defines serialization and deserialization operations for a content type. Content types are data formats that can be used in RESTable input and output, and using content type providers – we can add additional content types to a RESTable application.

Content type providers bind logic to a MIME type, which is defined as a string, for example application/json. When receiving requests, RESTable will pick the appropriate content type provider to use when deserializing input data from the content of the Content-Type header, and the appropriate content type provider to use when serializing output data from the content of the Accept header.

Included content type providers

These three protocol providers are already included with RESTable. You can also list all available protocols and their content providers by making a GET request to the RESTable.Admin.Protocol resource.

RESTable.Json.SystemTextJsonProvider

The SystemTextJsonProvider is the default JSON content type provider for reading and writing JSON, and handles requests that have the following MIME types defined in their Accept or Content-Type headers:

1
2
3
4

application/json
application/RESTable-json
json
text/plain

Since custom content type providers can override bindings to MIME types, a special application/RESTable-json is used to preserve a binding, should the client need to use the JsonContentProvider while application/json is overridden.

There is an IJsonProvider service available from the application’s service provider, that can be used in RESTable applications to serialize, deserialize and populate JSON according to RESTable metadata.

RESTable.Excel.ExcelContentProvider

The ExcelContentProvider is used to read and write Excel files. It has the following MIME type bindings:

1
2
3

application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
application/RESTable-excel
excel

RESTable.Json.JsonLinesProvider

The JsonLinesProvider can be used to write responses to JsonLines (see JSON Lines for more information).

Creating custom content type providers

To create a custom content type provider, implement the IContentTypeProvider interface and add a registration for IContentTypeProvider with your implementation in the application’s service collection on startup.