Confusion over MVC3 Code First / Repositories - asp.net-mvc-3

Question

Please can someone help me because I am getting confused.
I have an Entity like this:
public class Code
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public int UserID { get; set; }
public string CodeText { get; set; }
}
and an Interface like this:
public interface ICodeRepository
{
IQueryable<Code> Codes { get; }
void AddCode(Code code);
void RemoveCode(Code code);
Code GetCodeById(int id);
}
and a Repository like this:
public class SQLCodeRepository : ICodeRepository
{
private EFSQLContext context;
public SQLCodeRepository()
{
context = new EFSQLContext();
}
public IQueryable<Code> Codes
{
get { return context.Codes; }
}
public void AddCode(Code code)
{
context.Codes.Add(code);
context.SaveChanges();
}
public void RemoveCode(Code code)
{
context.Codes.Remove(code);
context.SaveChanges();
}
public Code GetCodeById(int id)
{
return context.Codes.Where(x => x.ID == id).FirstOrDefault();
}
}
and a Context like this:
public class EFSQLContext : DbContext
{
public DbSet<User> Users { get; set; }
public DbSet<Code> Codes { get; set; }
public DbSet<PortfolioUser> PortfolioUsers { get; set; }
}
If I declare my controller like this:
public class SearchController : Controller
{
private ICodeRepository cRepo;
public SearchController(ICodeRepository codeRepository)
{
cRepo = codeRepository;
}
}
and then try to do cRepo.GetCodeById(1) nothing happens. But if I declare private ICodeRepository rep = new SQLCodeRepository and then call rep.GetCodeById(1) I can see the method in the Repository being called.
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

It looks like from the constructor signature, you are going to be doing some dependency injection. The step you are missing is to set up a DI container using a tool like Castle Windsor. You then configure the MVC resolver to use the DI container to give you the correct implementation of ICodeRepository.
See this
You'll need to create a resolver that implements IDependencyResolver and IDependencyScope and a controller factory that inheritsDefaultControllerFactory
Once you have those you can do something like the following:
MyContainer container; // this needs to be a class level member of the asax
var configuration = GlobalConfiguration.Configuration;
container = new MyContainer() // may need additional stuff here depending on DI tool used
configuration.DependencyResolver = new MyDependancyResolver(container);
var mvcControllerFactory = new MyFactory(container.Kernel);
ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(mvcControllerFactory);
You would call the above code from the asax Application_Start()
See this answer for more specifics on using Ninject and MVC3