Your First ASP.NET Web API (C#) - II

Adding a Controller

A controller is an object that handles HTTP requestst. The New Project wizard created two controllers for you when it created the project. To see them, expand the Controllers folder in Solution Explorer.

• HomeController is a traditional ASP.NET MVC controller. It is responsible for serving HTML pages for the site, and is not directly related to Web API.
• ValuesController is an example WebAPI controller.

Note  If you have worked with ASP.NET MVC, then you are already familiar with controllers. They work similarly in Web API, but controllers in Web API derive from the ApiController class instead of Controllerclass. The first major difference you will notice is that actions on Web API controllers do not return views, they return data.

Go ahead and delete ValuesController, by right-clicking the file in Solution Explorer and selecting Delete.

Add a new controller, as follows:

In Solution Explorer, right-click the the Controllers folder. Select Add and then select Controller.

In the Add Controller wizard, name the controller "ProductsController". In the Template drop-down list, selectEmpty API Controller. Then click Add.