i am new in MVC and learning. here i am putting some code. so see first
public class HomeController : BaseController
{
private IProductRepository productRepository;
private string strRouteValue;
protected override void Initialize(System.Web.Routing.RequestContext requestContext)
{
base.Initialize(requestContext);
strRouteValue = this.ControllerContext.RouteData.Values["method"].ToString();
this.productRepository = Factory.Create(strRouteValue);
}
[HttpGet]
public ActionResult Index(int id)
{
productRepository.Get(id);
return View();
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index(Product model)
{
productRepository.Add(model);
return View();
}
}
what Initialize function does ?
every one must say this is where people would init many object, if so then we can do it in constructor of controller too. so what is special about controller Initialize function ?
what is difference between controller Initialize function and controller constructor ?
Check the documentation for that method: MSDN: Controller.Initialize():
Initializes data that might not be available when the constructor is called.
This method cannot be called directly. Override this method in order to provide additional processing tasks before any ActionResult methods are called, such as setting the thread culture or assigning a custom provider for TempData objects. If you override this method, call the base control's Initialize method.
And as I suggested on your previous twenty or so questions about MVC, Dependency Injection and controller instantiation: stop piecing together advice from poor blogposts and irrelevant answers on SO. Buy a decent MVC book and read it from cover to cover. Then do the same with a book about Unit Testing. You will never get a thorough understanding of things if you continue this way.
There is a difference between instantiating a controller and initializing it. Instantiating is moreover a .NET concept not MVC, so every class is automatically instantiated using default constructor. So, constructor is basically a concept of class whereas Initializing is concept of action method. We override Initialize() method in order to provide additional processing tasks before any ActionResult methods are called, such as setting the thread culture or assigning TempData objects etc....
Related
I have a Dictionary that will be populated with data from the database at startup, with a method that takes the key as a parameter, and returns the value. How to make the dictionary publicly accessible to all controllers? After searching, I learned that I would need to use Dependency Injection, but I'm failing at implementing it. Any resource that can get me on track is highly appreciated.
There are many ways to implement your question with/without DI. One of which is to write a static class that will be filled upon app startup.
No dependency injection:
Declare a static class that contains your dictionary. By being static there would only be 1 instance on app start.
public static class StaticDictionary {
public Dictionary<string,int> MyDictionary {get;set;}
}
In your Startup.cs - Configure method, append your db context in the parameters.
public void Configure(..., YourDbContext dbContext)
In the Configure method again, append your code that fills the dictionary.
public void Configure(..., YourDbContext dbContext){
...
// no need to modify the code above this, just append the fill dictionary code
foreach(var item in dbContext.TableName.ToList()){
StaticDictionary.MyDictionary.Add(...);
}
}
In your controllers, you could access StaticDictionary without DI.
public IActionResult Index{
var something = StaticDictionary.MyDictionary["Something"];
return View();
}
Is this doable in ASP.NET Core? I want to move existing HomeContoroller logic to IHomeService, but there're action logic, where they call some base controller methods that are difficult to do without controller, so I thought moving action logic to this service and use DI to get the current controller instance in there. Or maybe there's a better approach?
public class HomeController : ControllerBase
{
public MyController(IHomeService service)
{
}
}
public class HomeService : IHomeService
{
public HomeService(ControllerBase controller, IOtherService otherService)
{
}
}
There are two problems with your approach:
HomeService accepts a ControllerBase instance. Since all controller classes inherit from ControllerBase. While you could map a specific type to ControllerBase in your DI system, this would not be very useful.
You are introducing a chicken or the egg problem with the circular dependency on ControllerBase:
HomeController depends on HomeService and
HomeService depends on having a controller (most probably HomeController)
To break the cycle you could remove controller from the constructor of HomeService and pass it as parameter to those methods of IHomeService that need access controller.
Another approach would be to change controller to a property and wire up instances in the constructor:
public class HomeController
{
public HomeController(IHomeService homeService)
{
// Assign controller to service here:
homeService.Controller = this;
}
}
I would recommend to use the method parameter approach, so the compiler forces you to pass controller where it is needed.
In a Sitecore project I've integrated Simple Injector using this article
It uses sitecore pipelines and then uses a method in App_start
namespace BBC.App_Start
{
public class SimpleInjector : IPackage
{
public void RegisterServices(Container container)
{
GetContainer.RegisterServices(container);
container.Register(() => new SitecoreContext(), Lifestyle.Scoped);
container.Register(() => new Container(), Lifestyle.Singleton);
}
}
}
Simply I can inject container into controller constructor but can't have container in View files.
I tried to declare a static property in App-start and save container to it. but still I'm getting no registration type in Views
What is the best way to have container object in views?
As Stephen suggests in his comment, the literal answer to your question is "you shouldn't do that - because it's not really the way MVC and DI are supposed to work". The more detailed answer goes something like this:
The job of your view is to present data that it has been passed via the Model. Views should not really contain logic. Very simple stuff like "if flag is false, hide this block of mark-up" is ok, but the more complex code to work out what the value of the flag is shouldn't be in the view.
MVC tries to make our website code better by encouraging you to separate presentation (the View) from data (the Model) and logic (the Controller). This should make our code easier to work with - So if you have processing that needs doing, then it should really be happening when your controller method runs.
If your view requires some special data, best practice suggests it should work it out in the controller method and pass it to the view in the model. The code might look more like this:
public class MyModel
{
public string SpecialData { get; set; }
}
public class MyController : Controller
{
public ActionResult DoSomething()
{
// do whatever processing is needed
var somethingCalculate = resultFromYourOtherObject();
// do other stuff
var model = new MyModel() { SpecialData = somethingCalculated };
return View(model);
}
}
And then the View just needs to accept the MyModel class as its model, and render the SpecialData property - no logic required.
I think also it's considered a bad idea to have calls to fetch objects from your DI container spread about your codebase. For MVC apps, generally your DI container gets wired in to the process of creating a controller for a request when the app starts up. Rather than passing about a DI Container into your controllers, the DI framework extends the Controller-creation process, and the container isn't exposed outside of this. When the MVC runtime needs to create a controller, the controller-creation logic uses the DI framework to fetch objects for all the controller's dependencies.
Without more detail about what you actually want to achieve, it's difficult to say what the "right" approach to creating your object(s) here is, but the two most common patterns are probably:
1) Constructor injection: Your controller has a parameter which accepts the object required. The DI container creates this object for you at the point where it creates the controller, so your controller gets all its dependencies when it is created. Good for: scenarios where you know how to create the object at the beginning of the request.
public interface IMySpecialObject
{
string DoSomething();
}
public class MyController : Controller
{
private IMySpecialObject _specialObject;
public MyController(IMySpecialObject specialObject)
{
_specialObject = specialObject;
}
public ActionResult RenderAView()
{
// do some stuff
var data = _specialObject.DoSomething();
return View(data);
}
}
As long as IMySpecialObject and a concrete implementation for it are registered with your DI container when your app starts up, all is well.
2) Factory classes: Sometimes, however, the object in question might be optional, or it might require data that's not available at controller-creation time to create it. In that case, your DI framework could pass in a Factory object to your controller, and this is used to do the construction of the special object later.
public interface ISpecialFactory
{
ISpecialObject CreateSpecialObject(object data);
}
public class MyController : Controller
{
private IMySpecialFactory _specialFactory;
public MyController(IMySpecialFactory specialFactory)
{
_specialFactory = specialFactory;
}
public ActionResult RenderAView()
{
// do some stuff
if( requireSpecialObject )
{
var data = getSomeData();
var specialObject = _specialFactory.CreateSpecialObject(data);
var data = _specialObject.DoSomething();
return View(data);
}
return View("someOtherView");
}
}
But a good book on using DI may suggest other approaches that fit your specific problem better.
I've implemented Unit of Work/Repository pattern, as described here, but I'm also using autofac and constructor injection, so I registered UnitOfWork and DbContext (PsyProfContext) class like this:
builder.Register(context => new PsyProfContext()).InstancePerHttpRequest();
builder.RegisterType<UnitOfWork>().As<IUnitOfWork>().InstancePerHttpRequest();
And everything works great!
Except for one thing: I'm also using enterprise library logging block, and I have implemented CustomTraceListener which is using Entity Framework to write log entry into the database.
My controller looks like this (it is empty because at the moment I just tried to verify if all the things (IoC, logging, entity framework) are working):
public class HomeController : Controller
{
private readonly UnitOfWork unitOfWork;
public HomeController(IUnitOfWork unitOfWork)
{
this.unitOfWork = (UnitOfWork) unitOfWork;
}
//
// GET: /Home/
public ActionResult Index()
{
throw new HttpException();
return View();
}
protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
unitOfWork.Dispose();
base.Dispose(disposing);
}
}
And in the Write method of the CustomTraceListener class, I've tried to Resolve UnitOfWork:
DependencyResolver.Current.GetService<IUnitOfWork>() as UnitOfWork;
But I get an instance which is already disposed! so I've put some breakpoints and found out that Dispose method of the controller is called before the Write method of the CustomTraceListener class, so in the end I didn't found other solution than using DbContext (PsyProfContext) directly:
public override void Write(object o)
{
using (var conext = new PsyProfContext())
{
var customLogEntry = o as CustomLogEntry;
if (customLogEntry != null)
{
var logEntry = new LogEntry
{
//a bunch of properties
};
conext.Exceptions.Add(logEntry);
conext.SaveChanges();
}
}
}
But I don't like this solution! What's the point to use UnitOfWork and Repository pattern if you access DbContext object directly. Or what's the point in using DI in project if you create a registered object manually in some cases.
So I wanted to hear your opinion, about how to deal with this kind of situations? Is my current implementation fine, or it is definitely wrong and I should think about another one.
Any help will be greatly appreciated and any ideas are welcome!
It looks like you may have a couple of problems.
First, if you're manually disposing the unit of work object in your controller, your controller should take an Owned<IUnitOfWork> in the constructor. When the request lifetime is disposed it will automatically dispose of any IDisposable components - including the controller and any resolved dependencies - unless you specify somehow that you're going to take over ownership of the lifetime. You can do that by using Owned<T>.
public class HomeController : Controller
{
Owned<IUnitOfWork> _uow;
public HomeController(Owned<IUnitOfWork> uow)
{
this._uow = uow;
}
protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if(disposing)
{
this._uow.Dispose();
}
base.Dispose(disposing);
}
}
(Note a minor logic fix in the Dispose override there - you need to check the value of disposing so you don't double-dispose your unit of work.)
Alternatively, you could register your units of work as ExternallyOwned, like
builder
.RegisterType<UnitOfWork>()
.As<IUnitOfWork>()
.ExternallyOwned()
.InstancePerHttpRequest();
ExternallyOwned also tells Autofac that you'll take control of disposal. In that case, your controller will look like it does already. (Generally I like to just let Autofac do the work, though, and not take ownership if I can avoid it.)
In fact, looking at the way things are set up, you might be able to avoid the disposal problem altogether if you let Autofac do the disposal for you - the call to DependencyResolver would return the unit of work that isn't disposed yet and it'd be OK.
If that doesn't fix it... you may want to add some detail to your question. I see where your controller is using the unit of work class, but I don't see where it logs anything, nor do I see anything in the listener implementation that's using the unit of work.
(Also, as noted in the first comment on your question, in the constructor of your controller you shouldn't be casting your service from IUnitOfWork to UnitOfWork - that's breaking the abstraction that the interface was offering in the first place.)
I need to access the Server.MapPath(virtualPath) method in a controller in an MVC 4 ApiController.
The answer is usually to access it from ControllerContext.HttpContext.Server. However, unlike MvcControllers, the ControlerContext for an ApiController has no HttpContext.
The WebApiAppication that is instantiated in Global.asax.cs has an HttpContext element (Context). However, unlike MVC 3 and earlier, I can't find a way to access the WebApiApplication from a controller. (Earlier generations stored a reference to it in a static Instance variable. MVC 4 removes that.)
Also, I'm trying to find something that will also work without a ton of extra scaffolding when I call the controller methods from a unit Test. I think I could access it, even in a WebApi Controller, using HttpContext.Current (at least it compiles), but I can't mock that for testing. (I'm talking unit testing here, where you call directly to the Controller methods. I've seen some recent tutorials where you unit test with a thin HttpClient, and thus test the whole stack. That seems more like low-level integration testing to me.)
This doesn't seem like it should be that difficult, but I've spent several hours googling it and trying things, and my head's getting bloody from beating it against the wall.
I'd recommend you abstracting this functionality:
public interface IMyDependency
{
string MapPath(string path);
}
and then have an implementation:
public class MyConcreteDependency: IMyDependency
{
public string MapPath(string path)
{
return HostingEnvironment.MapPath(path);
}
}
and finally your ApiController is completely independent on all static method calls making it unit test friendly:
public class MyController: ApiController
{
private readonly IMyDependency dependency;
public MyController(IMyDependency dependency)
{
this.dependency = dependency;
}
public HttpResponseMessage Get()
{
var path = this.dependency.MapPath("~/App_Data");
...
}
}
For ApiControllers, build yourself a DelegatingHandler and push all of your goodies onto request.Properties. You can then retrieve them from your request whether you are testing or running live. The benefit is that you then have zero dependency on Session in your Controller.
MessageHandler
public class ContextHandler : DelegatingHandler
{
protected override Task<HttpResponseMessage> SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, System.Threading.CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
// get the goodies to add onto the request
var goodies = /* call to goodieGoodieYumYum */
// add our goodies onto the request
request.Properties.Add(Constants.RequestKey_Goodies, goodies);
// pass along to the next handler
return base.SendAsync(request, cancellationToken);
}
}
Controller Action
var goodies = (List<Goodie>)Request.Properties[Constants.RequestKey_Goodies];