C#•10mo ago

✅ ASP Net 7 - Return list of objects as an object with a nested list

I have an endpoint with the following code:

public async Task<List<Page>> ListPages()
{
   var pages = await _dbContext.Pages.ToListAsync();
        
    return pages;
}

public async Task<List<Page>> ListPages()
{
   var pages = await _dbContext.Pages.ToListAsync();
        
    return pages;
}

This returns a list like:

[
  {
    "id": 1,
    "title": "Hello ASP!",
    "body": "<p>Testing</p>",
    "author": "M"
  },
  {
    "id": 2,
    "title": "Second Page",
    "body": "<p>Cool!</p>",
    "author": "M"
  }
]

[
  {
    "id": 1,
    "title": "Hello ASP!",
    "body": "<p>Testing</p>",
    "author": "M"
  },
  {
    "id": 2,
    "title": "Second Page",
    "body": "<p>Cool!</p>",
    "author": "M"
  }
]

I want to return:

```
{ "data": 
[{
    "id": 1,
    "title": "Hello ASP!",
    "body": "<p>Testing</p>",
    "author": "M"
  },
  {
    "id": 2,
    "title": "Second Page",
    "body": "<p>Cool!</p>",
    "author": "M"
  }]
}

```
{ "data": 
[{
    "id": 1,
    "title": "Hello ASP!",
    "body": "<p>Testing</p>",
    "author": "M"
  },
  {
    "id": 2,
    "title": "Second Page",
    "body": "<p>Cool!</p>",
    "author": "M"
  }]
}

```

5 Replies

unhAPI•10mo ago

so put your List<Page> in an object 🤷 also can you consider not returning your raw db object from a controller? there are probably fields in there that shouldn't be given to the world to see instead you could build a model specifically for this need

Unknown User•10mo ago

Message Not Public

Vortac•10mo ago

There's no fields in the DB object that need to be kept hidden:

public class Page
{
    [Key]
    [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string? Title { get; set; }
    public string? Body { get; set; }
    public string? Author { get; set; }
}

public class Page
{
    [Key]
    [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string? Title { get; set; }
    public string? Body { get; set; }
    public string? Author { get; set; }
}

but I assume there should be a second class called PageDto to send to the client?

unhAPI•10mo ago

There's no fields in the DB object that need to be kept hidden:

we could argue about Id but anyway the dto could have some specific attributes for serialization, for example also it could be a specific dto for a feature instead of the whole thing, which could help keep stuff organized (say you event only want a dto for creating and one for retrieving the model)

Vortac•10mo ago

I have an endpoint called /api/pages/{id} where users can pass a pageId to get that specific page, but I can see why it would be hidden in other cases

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✅ ASP Net 7 - Return list of objects as an object with a nested list