I am using the Entity Framework/Repository-UnitOfWork/Service layer method on this ASP.NET MVC Application and it works great, but it seems a layer might be missing in order to keep the controllers thin.
Lets take for example a user authentication scenario:
1) The AuthenticationController takes a IAuthenticationService which in turn takes a IUnitOfWork and IRepository<User> (I am using generic repositories).
2) In the controller I want to make its only concern that the service authenticates the user:
if (userService.AuthenticateUser(model.userName, model.password)) {
FormsAuthentication.SetCookie(...);
return RedirectToAction(...);
}
return View(model);
Some will say this is too much logic in the controller right? So it seems as though we might need a Application Manager if you will:
if (appManager.AuthenticateUser(model.userName, model.password)) {
// Here the app manager calls the service???
return RedirectToAction(...);
}
I am trying to keep my domain services agnostic of the consuming application so I can use them on MVC, WinForms, Console, WPF, WCF, etc.
My service layers only return domain objects, I need a place to transform them into View Models, but I want to keep that out of the controllers.
Any input on this would be great!!
Typically, one would use something like AutoMapper to map your domain objects to ViewModels. Then you only have a Map call that wraps your service layer. There is little reason to introduce an entirely new layer just for object mapping.
Related
I had a webapi in which I was using app.CreatePerOwinContext in startup.cs file but I want to migrate that webapi to .net core 2.1. So I have stuck at this point as I can't fine any alternate for CreatePerOwinContext.
Here is my webapi code:
public static UserManager<IdentityUser> Create(IdentityFactoryOptions<UserManager<IdentityUser>> options, IOwinContext context)
{
var manager = new UserManager<IdentityUser>(new UserStore());
return manager;
}
public void ConfigureAuth(IAppBuilder app)
{
app.CreatePerOwinContext<UserManager<IdentityUser>>(Create);
...
}
So how can I convert the above code in .net core 2.1?
That method was used as a service locator to load up dependencies and then access them throughout your code. Service location on its own is considered an anti-pattern, and is not recommended for use in the vast majority of real world situations.
Instead, people use IOC containers now to manage their dependency injection. In ASP.NET MVC Core, there's now a lightweight and "good enough" IOC container provided for you as part of the framework.
Microsoft provides an overview in this article, but the short version is that in your Startup.cs you register your dependency tree under ConfigureServices (usually using an extension method so Startup.cs doesn't get too large).
After you've registered your dependencies, you load them either through property injection, constructor injection, or method parameter injection. This results in cleaner code that is more maintainable than standard service location.
Edit:
If you truly insist on managing a service locator either because the technical debt is acceptable or because the business case warrants the current design, then I suggest you transition your work from OwinContext over to HttpContext.
In ASP.NET Core, you access the HttpContext by injecting the HttpContextAccessor into your class, and changing your OwinContext calls to pull from the key value store in HttpContext.
Instructions for injecting HttpContextAccessor can be found in this SO answer. Simply store KVPs using HttpContext.Current.Application["myObject"].
I don't recommend doing this, but I'm willing to share it because I understand the reality of deadlines vs the idealism of architecture.
Since REST based controller methods only return objects ( not views ) to the client based on the request, how can I show view to my user ? Or maybe better question what is a good way to combine spring-mvc web app with REST, so my user always get the answer, not in just ( for example ) JSON format, but also with the view ?
So far as I understood, REST based controller would be perfectly fitting to the mobile app ( for example twitter ), where views are handled inside the app and the only thing server has to worry about is to pass the right object to the right request. But what about the web app ?
I might be wrong in several things ( correct me if I am ), since I am trying to understand REST and I am still learning.
To simplify things - you basically have two options:
1) Build Spring MVC application.
2) Build REST backend application.
In case of first option - within your application you will have both backend and frontend (MVC part).
In case of second option you build only backend application and expose it through REST API. In most cases, you will need to build another application - REST client for your application. This is more flexible application because it gives you opportunity to access your backend application from various clients - for example, you can have Android, IOS applications, you can have web application implemented using Angular etc...
Please note, that thins are not so simple, you can within one application have both REST backend and REST client etc... This is just very very simplified in order that you get some general picture. Hope this clarified a little things.
There is some additional clarification related to REST and views worth learning. From your question, I can see that you mean "view" in a sense of UI(user interface) and typical MVC usage. But "view" can mean different things in a different contexts.
So:
JSON can be considered as a view for data
JSON is a representation of the resource, just like HTML is
JSON doesn't have style (unless you are not using a browser
extension, which most the users are not using)
The browser is recognizing HTML as a markup language and applying a
style to it
Both are media types
Both JSON and HTML are data formats
Both can be transferred over the wire
This method returns a view
#RequestMapping("/home")
String home(Model model) {
return "home"; // resources\templates\home.html
}
This method Returns String
#RequestMapping(value = "/home")
#ResponseBody
public String home() {
return "Success";
}
If you annotate a method with #ResponseBody, Spring will use a json mapper to generate the response. Instead of annotating every method with #ResponseBody you can annotate your class with #RestController.
If you want to return a view, you need to annotate the class with #Controller instead of #RestController and configure a viewresolver. Bij default spring will use thymeleaf as a viewresolver if you have spring-web as a dependency on the classpath. The return type of the method is a String that references the template to be rendered. The templates are stored in src/main/resources/templates.
You can find a guide on the spring website: https://spring.io/guides/gs/serving-web-content/
I am a newbie to MEF and I am really mixed up! There are lot of useful articles out there and neat question and answers here in stackoverflow. I downloaded the example which #matthew-abbott has uploaded in his blog , but I dont know how to add new plug-ins or extension to extend the main web application, I mean like what you can see here.
Edited :
Also I use Entity Framework, Code First Approach and Unit of work for my data access layer application, what If my plug-ins needs data access and (I mean the plug-in has itself models) wants to use the DAL I created ? As you know every time the model changes, DbContext throws and error and tells re-create DB, Is there any way or other ORM which accepts extending DAL dynamically?
That particular example shows how we can integrate MEF with MVC3's new DependencyResolver which provides a service location mechanism for various extension points within the MVC architecture. There are a few other articles on my blog which detail more information about how a possible plugin architecture could work, these are available at:
Modular ASP.NET MVC using the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF), Part One
Modular ASP.NET MVC using the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF), Part Two
Modular ASP.NET MVC using the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF), Part Three
There are also a host of fantastic articles, my recommendations would be to also read:
ASP.NET MVC and the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) by Maarten Balliauw
Defining Web-scoped parts with MEF by Tim Roberts
MVC is a very flexible architecture, there are a myriad of ways it can be extended, but because of the nature of how ASP.NET applications run in IIS, you need to consider part lifetime very carefully. As an example, controllers can only be used for one request, so you could would need to ensure that your controllers have a specific CreationPolicy. Tim Robert's article on Web-scoped parts is a particularly good read.
Hope that is enough to point you in the right direction.
Edit: Because of the modular nature that MEF provides, it is important to ensure that your different layers are decoupled. You've specified that you are using Entity Framework, but the reality is, EF should likely only be used in your data layer. Typically the MVC architecture would promote view models over domain models. To that end, it is probably useful to use something similar to the repository pattern to define, e.g. here is a mock UserRepository:
[Export(typeof(IUserRepository))]
public class UserRepository : IUserRepository
{
public IEnumerable<UserViewModel> GetUsers()
{
// Get values here from EF as domain models
// And return them as view models?
}
}
Which we can export and inject into a controller:
[ExportController("User"), PartCreationPolicy(CreationPolicy.NonShared)]
public class UserController : Controller
{
private readonly IUserRepository _repo;
[ImportingConstructor]
public UserController(IUserRepository repo)
{
if (repo == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException("repo");
_repo = repo;
}
public ActionResult Index()
{
var users = _repo.GetUsers();
return View(users);
}
}
This is just a really simple example, but like many IoC containers, MEF also supports dependency injection. As long as a part provides a suitable export, it can be imported (either through property injection, or constructor injection) into another part at composition time.
My recommendation would be against exposing EF to your views, as this makes them explicitly dependent on it. By taking care to decouple and only expose the right types at the right layers, you architecture will become a lot more robust, flexible and testable, which makes maintaining it, and updating it a lot easier. As another quick example, here is how we could test our controller:
[Test]
public void UserController_CreatesViewResult_WithListOfUsers()
{
var mock = new Mock<IUserRepository>();
mock.Setup(m => m.GetUsers()).Returns(new[] { new UserViewModel { Name = "Matt" } });
var controller = new UserController(mock.Object);
var result = controller.Index();
Assert.That(result is ViewResult);
// Other assertions.
}
Because I haven't tightly coupled EF to my view, my controller is a lot more testable, I can mock a suitable repository and test where I need to.
The important thing is planning your architecture.
Is it possible to inject dependencies into an MVC ViewPage (must support layout pages) without using DependencyResolver?
I would rather not use DependencyResolver at all (I had major problems when injecting NH sessions into ActionFilters in the past (leaking all over the place)). However, I'm not sure if there is an alternative?
The other complexity I have is that the DependencyResolver needs to be tenant aware (each tenant has its own (StructureMap) container). I'm currently doing this by passing in a lazy instance of my tenant container resolver (seems this is necessary otherwise the resolver is cached):
public SmDependencyResolver(Func<ISiteContainerResolver> containerResolver)
{
this.containerResolver = containerResolver;
}
public object GetService(Type serviceType)
{
var container = containerResolver().Resolve();
If I end up using DependencyResolver should I ditch my StructureMap controller factory since it looks like DependencyResolver handles this too?
Thanks
Ben
Given that the DependencyResolver is used by so many aspects of the ASP.NET MVC framework for dependency injection your life will be easier if you use it - as you say it means you don't need your own versions of things like the controller factory.
That said, the framework is very flexible and it is always open for you to plug in your own version of things - I just prefer to create as little of my own code as possible on the KISS principle.
What could the best strategy for writing validation layer for mid-enterprise level business application built on Spring 2.5
I know that Spring provides facility where we can implement Validator interface and write validation logic in validate method. But this will be restricted to only web requests coming through spring controller.
I would like to develop the validation framework which can be utilized during web-services calls.
In other words, the framework can remain and be called independently without the need of implementing Validator interface and then too it can be automatically integrated into Spring MVC flow.
Hope you get my point.
The Spring Validation framework can be used outside of Spring MVC. What WebServices Stack are you using? If you are using Spring-WS (Spring's Web Services stack) they have special instructions on how to set up the validator here:
http://static.springframework.org/spring-ws/sites/1.5/reference/html/server.html#d0e2313
If you are using some other stack, it is probably easier to implement something for that stack (or find one) that will use Spring's validation framework.
Recall that the Validator interface defines two methods:
boolean supports(Class clazz)
void validate(Object target, Errors errors)
The Object target is your form object, which is the whole object representing the page to be shown to the user. The Errors instance will contain the errors that will be displayed to the user.
So, what you need to do is define an intermediary that can be called with the specifics in your form that you want to validate which are also the same as in your web service. The intermediary can take one of two forms:
(probably the best):
public interface ErrorReturning {
public void getErrors(Errors errors);
}
(this can get ugly really fast if more than two states are added):
public interface ValidationObject {
public Errors getErrors(Errors errors);
public Object getResultOfWebServiceValidation();
}
I would suggest that the first approach be implemented. With your common validation, pass an object that can be used for web service validation directly, but allow it to implement the getErrors() method. This way, in your validator for Spring, inside your validation method you can simply call:
getCommonValidator().validate(partialObject).getErrors(errors);
Your web service would be based around calls to getCommonValidator().validate(partialObject) for a direct object to be used in the web service.
The second approach is like this, though the interface only allows for an object to be returned from the given object for a web service validation object, instead of the object being a usable web service validation object in and of itself.