asp.net mvc - Reading text/xml into a ASP.MVC Controller

Question

How do I read text/xml into an action on a ASP.MVC Controller?

I have a web application that may receive POSTed Xml from two different sources so the contents of the Xml may be different.

I want the default action on my controler to be able to read the Xml however I am struggling to see how I can get the Xml into the action in the first place.

If the Xml was consistent I could have used a Model Binder but thats not possible here.

Answer 1

You could read it from the request stream:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Foo()
{
    using (var reader = new StreamReader(Request.InputStream))
    {
        string xml = reader.ReadToEnd();
        // process the XML
        ...
    }
}

and to cleanup this action you could write a custom model binder for a XDocument:

public class XDocumentModeBinder : IModelBinder
{
    public object BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
    {
        return XDocument.Load(controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.InputStream);
    }
}

which you would register in Application_Start:

ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(XDocument), new XDocumentModeBinder());

and finally:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Foo(XDocument doc)
{
    // process the XML
    ...
}

which is obviously cleaner.