Not able to access Request.Headers in BeginExecuteCore() method of Basecontroller MVC4 - asp.net-web-api

Question

Can any one please help me? I am trying to implement localization in my mvc 4 WebApi application. I want to show the culture specific pages to the user on the basis of
"User-Locale" passed in the Request headers.
What I have done is, I am having a LinkedAccountModel class as shown below -
public class LinkedAccountModel
{
public string Id { get; set; }
[Required(ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(LanguageResources.Resource), ErrorMessageResourceName = "DomainNameRequired")]
[DataType(DataType.Password)]
[Display(Name = "DomainName", ResourceType = typeof(LanguageResources.Resource))]
public string DomainName { get; set; }
[Required(ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(LanguageResources.Resource), ErrorMessageResourceName = "UserNameRequired")]
[Display(Name = "UserName", ResourceType = typeof(LanguageResources.Resource))]
public string UserName { get; set; }
[Required(ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(LanguageResources.Resource), ErrorMessageResourceName = "PasswordRequired")]
[DataType(DataType.Password)]
[Display(Name = "Password", ResourceType = typeof(LanguageResources.Resource))]
public string Password { get; set; }
[Required(ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(LanguageResources.Resource), ErrorMessageResourceName = "ServerNameRequired")]
[Display(Name = "ServerName", ResourceType = typeof(LanguageResources.Resource))]
public string ServerName { get; set; }
[Required]
public long UserId { get; set; }
}
========================================================================
With this, I am having an ExchangeAccountSetupController which uses this model. This controller is implemented by the BaseController. My ExchangeAccountSetupController looks like as follows-
public class ExchangeAccountSetupController : BaseController
{
private PersistenceManagerAsync _persistenceManager;
public async Task<ActionResult> New(string sessionToken)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(sessionToken))
{
ViewBag.Title = LanguageResources.Resource.AccountConfigurationFailed;
ViewBag.ErrorMessage = LanguageResources.Resource.UnableToProcessRequest;
return View("Message");
}
_persistenceManager = new PersistenceManagerAsync(null);
var token = await _persistenceManager.RetrieveAsync<SessionToken>(string.Format("{0}|{1}", sessionToken.Substring(0, 10), sessionToken));
if (token == null)
{
ViewBag.Title = LanguageResources.Resource.AccountConfigurationFailed;
ViewBag.ErrorMessage = LanguageResources.Resource.UnableToProcessRequest;
return View("Message");
}
_persistenceManager = new PersistenceManagerAsync(token);
var user = new User { UserId = token.UserId };
var linkedAccount = await LinkedAccountManager.RetrieveLinkedAccount(_persistenceManager, user, "Exchange");
var linkedAccountModel = new LinkedAccountModel { UserId = token.UserId };
var existingUser = await _persistenceManager.RetrieveAsync<User>(user.PartitionKey, user.RowKey);
if (linkedAccount != null)
{
ViewBag.Title = LanguageResources.Resource.ChangePassword;
linkedAccountModel.DomainName = linkedAccount.DomainName;
linkedAccountModel.UserName = linkedAccount.UserName;
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(linkedAccount.Url))
linkedAccountModel.ServerName = new Uri(linkedAccount.Url).Host;
return View("New", linkedAccountModel);
}
ViewBag.Title = LanguageResources.Resource.ConfigureNewExchangeAccount; //default title.
return View("New", linkedAccountModel);
}
========================================================================
My BaseController looks like as follows -
public class BaseController : Controller
{
protected override IAsyncResult BeginExecuteCore(AsyncCallback callback, object state)
{
string currentLocale = string.Empty;
if (Request.Headers["User-Locale"] == null || string.IsNullOrEmpty(Request.Headers["User-Locale"]))
currentLocale = "en-US";
else
currentLocale = Request.Headers["User-Locale"];
// Modify current thread's cultures
string[] localeKeys = currentLocale.Split('-');
if (localeKeys[0].Equals("en"))
currentLocale = "en-US";
else if (localeKeys[0].Equals("nl"))
currentLocale = "nl-NL";
else
currentLocale = "en-US";
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo(currentLocale);
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;
return base.BeginExecuteCore(callback, state);
}
}
========================================================================
My client application is in Dotnet only. I am sending a request to the "ExchangeAccountSetupController" controller's New() Action.
Here is the client application code where I am adding headers in my HttpClient Request-
var client = new HttpClient();
client.Timeout = new TimeSpan(1, 1, 1);
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("User-Locale", "nl-NL");
var webResponse = httpClient.GetAsync(RestServiceUrl.GetLinkedAccountProviderUrl(accountProviderName)).Result;
if (webResponse.StatusCode != HttpStatusCode.OK)
return null;
var url = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<string>(webResponse.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result);
return url;
My problem is that whenever I send a request from my client, the request reached to BaseController successfully.But I cannot access that "User-Locale" in the current Request object under BeginExecuteCore() method. I cannot access the "User-Locale" header from the Request object. I did not get any thing in Request.Headers["User-Locale"].It give me null.
Please tell me if I am doing anything wrong.Even I am not sure whether I can access that header under BeginExecuteCore() method or not .Any suggestions are highly appreciated.

Answer 1

There is no User-Locale header defined in HTTP. You are probably looking for the Accept-Language header.
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.4
From MVC Web API you can get a hold of it with
Request.Headers.AcceptLanguage.
You can also get a parsed list of languages with this property
HttpContext.Current.Request.UserLanguages
Please note that the list is NOT sorted, contrary to what the documentation says.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.httprequest.userlanguages(v=vs.110).aspx