Communicate between Controller and ApiController

Question

Very new to MVC development, and for our project, we're communicating RESTfully with a SQL database. In my case, I have two Controllers, DrugEntriesListController and DrugEntryController. The former is derived from Controller and controls a web page view, while the latter is derived from ApiController and handles RESTful HTTP POST/GET with our database through a repository class (tutorial I followed is this one).

In my web page, you can upload a file (using this tutorial), which routes to the DrugEntriesListController via the built-in Request class that tracks uploaded files. From there, I can send said files to be parsed, etc. However, my issue is this: in order to RESTfully upload the parsed data to the DB, I need to go through DrugEntryController, since it is an ApiController and has the HTTP POST/GET calls. Problem is, I have no idea how to access it without instantiating a new one from either the view Controller or other files.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding (very likely), but the ApiController is interacted with via the DrugEntriesList view Index.cshtml, here's my current code:

@{
  ViewBag.Title = "Index";
  Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml";
}

<div id="body">
  <ul id="drug_entries"></ul>
</div>

@section scripts{
<script type="text/javascript">
  $(function ()
  {
    $.getJSON('/api/DrugEntry', function (drugEntriesJsonPayload)
    {
      $(drugEntriesJsonPayload).each(function (i, item)
      {
        $('#drug_entries').append('<li>' > + item.NDC + '</li>');
      });
    });
  });
</script>
}

Upload a new .CSV file for the Drug Database:

@using (Html.BeginForm ("", 
  "DrugEntriesList", 
  FormMethod.Post, 
  new {enctype="multipart/form-data"}))
{
  <input type="file" name="newCSV" /><br />
  <input type="submit" name="Submit" id="Submit" value="Upload" />
}

Since I've got a wall of obfuscated gibberish, the tl;dr is that I need to get information received in a Controller into an already existing ApiController.

Answer 1

So, I'm going to state a religious answer (that is this is how I decide to program, not a best practice or defacto way).

I don't use the ApiController unless; it's going to be called by an external 3rd party, or I am using a 3rd party framework (Kendo, Knockout) that is designed to work directly against a RESTful service.

In your specific case, there is no reason you have to use an ApiController. Your code could look like:

[Script]

$.getJSON('/DrugEntry/GetList', //...

[c#]

public class DrugEntryController
{
  [HttpPost]
  public ActionResult GetList()
  {
    // blah blah get list
    IEnumerable<DrugEntry> drugs = db.GetDrugs();

    return this.Json(drugs);
  }
}