GetRouteData() in ASP.NET WebApi

I've been trying to get System.Web.Http.HttpRouteCollection.GetRouteData() to work in ASP.NET WebApi recently, and had a hard time of it. In ASP.NET MVC it's really easy, but there are additional details I couldn't figure out in WebApi. There was even a detailed set of answers on StackOverflow, but when I tried them, they all failed in ways that didn't make sense to me.

And now I have seen it work, so I want to document it. Here's what I did:

1. In VS 2013, New Project -> Web, ASP.NET Web Application
2. Select WebAPI. Check "Add unit tests".
3. Add the following unit test:

	[TestMethod]
	public void RouteToGetUser()
	{
	var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "http://localhost:4567/api/users/me");
	var config = new HttpConfiguration();
	WebApiConfig.Register(config);
	config.EnsureInitialized();
	var result = config.Routes.GetRouteData(request);
	Assert.AreEqual("api/{controller}/{id}", result.Route.RouteTemplate);
	}

view raw WebApiGetRouteDataExample.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

And here's a Git repository with the complete working solution.

(Thanks to this blog post for unblocking me.)