The problem, it turns out, was the parameter binding.
In the Web API, binding is handling differently than MVC. By default, simple types are extracted from the URI, not the body. Complex types are extracted from the body of the message.
I then added the [FromBody] Attribute to the Action Method, and it then found the action method. But alas, the email parameter was null.
public string validate([FromBody]string email) {
return this._contextProvider.ValidateEmail(email);
}
Turns out when using this trick, the body must NOT be json, but constructed like a querystring - [email protected]. I didn't want do do that, so ended up creating a class to accept the parameter, and that worked as expected.
public class ParameterizedAction {
public string Parameter { get; set; }
}
public string validate(ParameterizedAction arg) {
return this._contextProvider.ValidateEmail(arg.Parameter);
}
This article has more info: http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/web-api-routing-and-actions/routing-and-action-selection
as well as this one: http://encosia.com/using-jquery-to-post-frombody-parameters-to-web-api/