WebAPI controller inheritance and attribute routing

Check the answer I gave here WebApi2 attribute routing inherited controllers, which references the answer from this post .NET WebAPI Attribute Routing and inheritance.

What you need to do is overwrite the DefaultDirectRouteProvider:

public class WebApiCustomDirectRouteProvider : DefaultDirectRouteProvider {    protected override IReadOnlyList<IDirectRouteFactory>        GetActionRouteFactories(HttpActionDescriptor actionDescriptor) {        // inherit route attributes decorated on base class controller's actions        return actionDescriptor.GetCustomAttributes<IDirectRouteFactory>(inherit: true);    }}

With that done you then need to configure it in your web API configuration:

public static class WebApiConfig {    public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config) {        .....        // Attribute routing (with inheritance).        config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes(new WebApiCustomDirectRouteProvider());        ....    }}

You will then be able to do what you described like this:

public abstract class VehicleControllerBase : ApiController {    [Route("move")] // All inheriting classes will now have a `{controller}/move` route     public virtual HttpResponseMessage Move() {        ...    }}[RoutePrefix("car")] // will have a `car/move` routepublic class CarController : VehicleControllerBase {     public virtual HttpResponseMessage CarSpecificAction() {        ...    }}[RoutePrefix("bike")] // will have a `bike/move` routepublic class BikeController : VehicleControllerBase {     public virtual HttpResponseMessage BikeSpecificAction() {        ...    }}[RoutePrefix("bus")] // will have a `bus/move` routepublic class BusController : VehicleControllerBase {     public virtual HttpResponseMessage BusSpecificAction() {        ...    }}

This is what I did and it worked the way you mentioned in your question.

I created base ApiController class and inherited all my API controllers from it. I defined Delete operation in my Base class (which returns string "Not Supported") and didn't define delete on any of my child controller. Now when I do a delete on any of my controller I get the message "Not Supported" i.e. Base class's delete is called. ( I am doing Delete request on Child, and not on base i.e. /Bike/move)

But if I define a Delete on any of the controller it gives me warning of Hiding base implementation, but on doing Delete request for api I get - "An error has occurred."

I haven't tried doing RoutePrefix way.