Webapi DefaultHttpControllerSelector does not properly resolve my controller - asp.net-web-api

I have an WebApi application that contains some controllers (they are registered using the extension method RegisterApiControllers). This application references another assembly that contains other controllers that I don't want to expose(I have checked that they are not registered in the container). It happens that both have an OrderController, and when I try to access the /api/Order url, I get an exception "Multiple types were found that match the controller named 'order'." and the stack trace shows that I was in DefaultHttpControllerSelector.
I have seen that AutofacControllerFactory used to exist and there was even a ConfigureWebApi that registered it, but it is not anymore present in the default branch.(you can see it here http://alexmg.com/post/2012/03/09/Autofac-ASPNET-Web-API-(Beta)-Integration.aspx)
It seems also that we can not filter the namespace of the route definition in WebApi (it is possible to MVC).
So any idea on how I can use only the Controller registered in my Autofac container and not use the DefaultHttpControllerSelector that seems to scan all referenced assemblies to discover controller?
Thanks

The problem is that registering the controller with autofac is not really related to the routing process. Only once the routing process has identified which controller to dispatch to will Autofac be called to resolve the type.
It looks like, from digging around in the source, that you would need to write a replacement IHttpControllerSelector in order to handle two controllers with the same name. (which really sucks BTW).
You might be able replace the DefaultHttpControllerTypeResolver with an instance that is passed a predicate that filters out the controllers from the assembly that you want to ignore. It's a bit of a kludgy solution but might work.
Actually, you might be able to replace the DefaultHttpControllerTypeResolver completely with one that is based on registrations in your Autofac container. It is a very simple interface, so as long as Autofac have a some kind of discovery mechanism, you should be golden.
public interface IHttpControllerTypeResolver
{
ICollection<Type> GetControllerTypes(IAssembliesResolver assembliesResolver);
}

Related

MediatR Autofac Handler registration in Container

I'm running into an issue in my first IMediatR, Autofac MVC project. Help is much appreciated.. Thanks in advance !!!
Handler was not found for request of type
SliceProject.Services.Query.GetUserListQuery. Container or service
locator not configured properly or handlers not registered with your
container.
Autofac Container Code:
builder
.RegisterAssemblyTypes(typeof(IRequest<>).Assembly)
.Where(t => t.IsClosedTypeOf(typeof(IRequest<>)))
.AsImplementedInterfaces();
builder
.RegisterAssemblyTypes(typeof(IRequestHandler<,>).Assembly)
.Where(t => t.IsClosedTypeOf(typeof(IRequestHandler<,>)))
.AsImplementedInterfaces();
That's because you're telling Autofac to look in the assembly that contains the IRequestHandler<TRequest, TResponse> type. That type lives in the MediatR assembly, so there's no chance your handlers live in that assembly.
You have to chance the registration so it look in the assembly(ies) where your handlers are defined. If they're all defined in one single assembly, pick one handler and use it as a marker type. I tried to guess the name of one of your handlers here:
builder
.RegisterAssemblyTypes(typeof(GetUserListQueryHandler).Assembly)
.Where(t => t.IsClosedTypeOf(typeof(IRequestHandler<,>)))
.AsImplementedInterfaces();
Please also note that the registration can be made simpler with a funciton provided by Autofac, AsClosedTypesOf. It does exactly the same thing.
builder
.RegisterAssemblyTypes(typeof(GetUserListQueryHandler).Assembly)
.AsClosedTypesOf(typeof(IRequestHandler<,>)));
Finally, and this is a bit unrelated, but why do you try to register your requests in the container? Requests are usually created by custom code and not resolved from the container. In your case, it also has no effect since you made the same mistake as for handlers, that is looking for requests in the MediatR assembly, which doesn't contain any implementations of IRequest<TResponse>.

Use custom model binder from different assembly and instantiate object from same

I have a class library which includes a custom MVC model binder to instantiate various concrete types which derive from an abstract class. The model binder is almost identical to the one described in this post.
It works fine when using it from within the same Visual Studio Solution that also includes an MVC web application for testing.
My problem is that having created a nuget package from the assembly and included it in a totally separate MVC application the model binder no longer works, despite having configured it correctly in Global.asax.cs.
After some hair pulling I recreated the model binder directly in the separate MVC app, and as I was doing so I noticed that the overridden CreateModel() method in the binder is protected. It now gets executed and I suspect the protected keyword has something to do with it but I would like someone to explain why exactly.
Even with the 'local' modelbinder there are more problems. When it executes, and tries to instantiate the concrete object, I get an exception Could not load type XXXX from assembly { separate MVC project assembly name} so it seems the model binder is unable to load types from outside its own assembly.
Can anyone give me more information on why this happens and what I can do to work around it? Bearing in mind I need the model binder and models to reside in the class library not in the MVC assembly.
I had the same problem as you did, binding to models in a different assembly, but I needed a different solution. I used the same model binding example that you linked to, and I also got the same exception: Could not load type XXXX from assembly
I ended up needing to use the AssemblyQualifiedName for each concrete type. So my views contain this:
#Html.Hidden("ModelType", Model.GetType().AssemblyQualifiedName)
Instead of this:
#Html.Hidden("ModelType", Model.GetType())
I'm still wondering why this was necessary, since the default model binder can load types from the assembly in question.
OK so I was being stupid. It turns out that a few assumptions led me on a wild goose chase.
The ModelBinder was executing correctly to start with. My viewmodel had nested properties which were also abstract base types and required the model binder but I hadn't put the hidden fields in the view to identify their concrete type, nor had I added them to the Global.asax configuration. Once I did this everything started to work as expected.

Spring overwriting controller

I provide a highly customisable application to my clients which is working totally by itself. But If one my client wants to overwrite any Controller, I want to replace my implementation by theirs. However just overwriting the controller causes an ambiguous definition of mappings.
I have been using Component Scanning to load beans.
The potential solutions came to my mind are:
Using component scanner with excluding by a custom filter? (This seems not so easy)
Using a xxxxPostProcessor to remove some beans? (How?)
Any help?
If I got your Question properly,
You can differ implementation by changing URL to particular Implementation name
Say Telecom is interface and AirtelImpl and RelianceImpl are Controllers then
Your request mapping
#RequestMapping(value= "/airtel/doBilling")
#RequestMapping(value= "/reliance/doBilling")
In this way, Implementation flow will differ.
I have followed these steps:
Created a custom annotation: #Devoted
Created a custom ImportBeanDefinitionRegistrar. Iterated already registered bean definitions to find out `#Devoted #Controller's and removed them.
Based on a request I will provide implementation details.

Use Container/DependencyResolver in other dll

I'm trying to get myself familiar with MVC3 and autofac but I've encountered small problem that I'm having trouble resolving.
I am using autofac integrated with MVC3 and all works well, pages are loading correctly, dependencies are being injected and that's cool. What's bugging me is how to use autofac's Container or MVC's DependencyResover in class library project.
I'm trying to create static class that will help me handle domain events. I simply want to be able to call the method with event parameter and everything should be handeled by this class. Here is code:
public static IContainer Container { get; set; }
public static void Raise<T>(T e) where T : IDomainEvent
{
foreach (var eventHandler in DomainEventManager.Container.Resolve<IEnumerable<EventHandlers.Handles<T>>>())
{
eventHandler.Handle(e);
}
}
As you can see it's pretty straightforward and everything would work great if it wasn't MVC approach. Some of my dependencies are registeres as InstancePerHttpRequest (NHibernate' session), while other are registered as InstancePerDependency or SingleInstance. Thus when I try to use container created in my UI project, I get exception that there is no httpRequest tag available.
How can i reuse the Container created in web project to get access to all of it's features, including InstancePerHttpRequest and httpRequest tag?
Or maybe there is other solution to my problem? I was thinking about using delegate function to obtain event handlers, but I cannot (can I?) create generic delegate that I would not need to initialize with concrete type at time of assignment.
Why I want to do this using static class is basically every entity and aggregate or service needs to be able to raise domain event. Injecting EventManager into every one of these would be troublesome and static class is exactly what would resolve all my problems.
If anyone could help me get my head around it I would be grateful.
Cheers, Pako
You shouldn't be referencing your container directly from your app code. This looks like the Service Locator anti-pattern. The correct action is to pass your objects the services they need to do their jobs, usually done through constructor parameters. BUT... if you are going to insist on depending on a global static, then at least model EventManager as a singleton, such that usage would look like:
EventManager.Current.Raise<SomeEvent>(someObject);
and then you can set EventManager.Current equal to a properly constructed instance when your app is initialized.

MVC3 Action Filter Using Database (EF 4.1 DBContext, Ninject)

I'm trying to setup an 'Authorization' Filter on an Action, creating my own ActionFilterAttribute where I do a database lookup to determine if a user has access to a certain resource.
On my class inheriting from ActionFilterAttribute, I have created an Injected(Ninject) property to hold the service that I am using for the database access. I have a parameterless constructor so that I can use this as an attribute on my actions. In the 'OnActionExecuting' Method, I am able to gain access to the Injected property (it's not null), but the base DBCotext that it is using is closed.
This working fine, up until the RTM of MVC3, where the Release Notes stated:
Breaking Changes:
In previous versions of ASP.NET MVC, action filters are create per
request except in a few cases. This
behavior was never a guaranteed
behavior but merely an implementation
detail and the contract for filters
was to consider them stateless. In
ASP.NET MVC 3, filters are cached more
aggressively. Therefore, any custom
action filters which improperly store
instance state might be broken.
The first time I use this filter, it works as expected, but if I refresh the page or another user access this filter, I get the error:
The operation cannot be completed
because the DbContext has been
disposed.
which is what I guess I should expect given the breaking changes notes.
My question is this, what would be the preferred/recommended way of accomplishing what I need to do? Should this be in an ActionFilterAttribute, or should this 'authorization' be done somewhere else?
I'd do authentication in Application_AuthenticateRequest and authorization in your attribute using Thread.CurrentPrincipal, but your method should work too. You just need to count with fact that DbContext will be different for each request but your attribute won't. Something like this should do the trick (I'm assuming you are using DependencyResolver):
public class MyMightyAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
var context = (DbContext)DependencyResolver.Current.GetService(typeof(DbContext))
// authenticate, authorize, whatever
base.OnActionExecuting(filterContext);
}
}
I have been battling with this for a while and finally solved my problem. So here is my solution in the hope it may help someone else.
The setup:
1. I have an MVC3 project, a custom action filter that accesses the db using EF5 via a business service.
2. I use Unity and unity.MVC to resolve my dependencies on a per request basis.
3. I use property injection into my custom Action filter, as it has a parameterless constructor.
The result.
Dependency injection works correctly for all the services used by actions, my EF DbContext is correctly disposed of at the end of each request.
The Problem
Although my property dependency is resolved in my custom action filter, it contains a stale instance of my DbContext (e.g. it seems to have been cached from the previous request)
As mentioned in previous posts, MVC3 is more aggressive with filter caching and the state of a filter cannot be relied on. So the suggestion was to resolve the dependency in the OnActionExecuting method. So I removed my injected property and did just that called resolve on my unity container. However I still got a stale version of the DbContext. Any changes in the DB were correctly queried in my main actions, but the custom action filter didn’t pick them up.
The solution.
Unity.MVC Manages per-request lifetime by using child containers and disposing these at the end of each request. By resolving my dependency’s in the action filter from my unity container I was resolving from the parent container which is not disposed of on each request.
So rather than
IoC.Instance.CurrentContainer.Resolve<IService>();
I used this to obtain an instance of the child container rather than parent.
var childContainer = HttpContext.Current.Items["perRequestContainer"] as IUnityContainer;
var service = childContainer.Resolve<IServcie>();
I'm sure there must be a clean way to achive the same result, so please add suggestions.
Ok slight refinement to allow my unit test to inject a mock of the service.
1. remove the dependency resolve from the the OnActionexecuting and add two constructors.
public MyCustomActionfilter() : this(((IUnityContainer)HttpContext.Current.Items["perRequestContainer"].Resolve<IService>())
and
public MyCustomActionfilter(IService service)
{
this.service = service;
}
Now the constructor resolves your service and stores it as a private readonly. This can now be consumed in your OnActionExecutng function. Unit tests can now call the second constructor and inject a mock.

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