Media Type Formatters

Media Type Formatters are responsible of deserializing the HttpRequestMessage body into a object that will be used as an input in a controller action. It is also responsible for serialize the object returned in the HttpResponseMessage according to the MIME type set in the Accept header.

Additional formatters in WebApiContrib

ASP.NET Web API ships with two media type formatters, XmlMediaTypeFormatter and JsonMediaTypeFormatter. WebApiContrib contains the following media type formatters:

• BsonMediaTypeFormatter
• HtmlMediaTypeViewFormatter
• JavaScriptSerializerFormatter
• JsonpMediaTypeFormatter
• MessagePackMediaTypeFormatter
• ProtoBufFormatter
• RazorViewFormatter
• ServiceStackTextFormatter
• XlsxMediaTypeFormatter

Registering a media type formatter

In general, to register a formatter to be used in your ASP.NET Web API application, add it to the Formatters collection in the GlobalConfiguration object.

protected void Application_Start()
{
    GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Add(new ServiceStackTextFormatter());
   
   // other registrations (routes, areas, global filters, etc)
}

Check the documentation for the formatter you are using for more information on special parameters or requirements it may have.