Use Container/DependencyResolver in other dll - asp.net-mvc-3

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.

Related

Mule connector config needs dynamic attributes

I have develop a new Connector. This connector requires to be configured with two parameters, lets say:
default_trip_timeout_milis
default_trip_threshold
Challenge is, I want read ${myValue_a} and ${myValue_a} from an API, using an HTTP call, not from a file or inline values.
Since this is a connector, I need to make this API call somewhere before connectors are initialized.
FlowVars aren't an option, since they are initialized with the Flows, and this is happening before in the Mule app life Cycle.
My idea is to create an Spring Bean implementing Initialisable, so it will be called before Connectors are init, and here, using any java based libs (Spring RestTemplate?) , call API, get values, and store them somewhere (context? objectStore?) , so the connector can access them.
Make sense? Any other ideas?
Thanks!
mmm you could make a class that will create the properties in the startup and in this class obtain the API properties via http request. Example below:
public class PropertyInit implements InitializingBean,FactoryBean {
private Properties props = new Properties();
#Override
public Object getObject() throws Exception {
return props;
}
#Override
public Class getObjectType() {
return Properties.class;
}
}
Now you should be able to load this property class with:
<context:property-placeholder properties-ref="propertyInit"/>
Hope you like this idea. I used this approach in a previous project.
I want to give you first a strong warning on doing this. If you go down this path then you risk breaking your application in very strange ways because if any other components depend on this component you are having dynamic components on startup, you will break them, and you should think if there are other ways to achieve this behaviour instead of using properties.
That said the way to do this would be to use a proxy pattern, which is a proxy for the component you recreate whenever its properties are changed. So you will need to create a class which extends Circuit Breaker, which encapsulates and instance of Circuit Breaker which is recreated whenever its properties change. These properties must not be used outside of the proxy class as other components may read these properties at startup and then not refresh, you must keep this in mind that anything which might directly or indirectly access these properties cannot do so in their initialisation phase or your application will break.
It's worth taking a look at SpringCloudConfig which allows for you to have a properties server and then all your applications can hot-reload those properties at runtime when they change. Not sure if you can take that path in Mule if SpringCloud is supported yet but it's a nice thing to know exists.

Dependency Injection Android

I am not sure how to use Dependency Injection on Xamarin Android project solution. Currently my Android solution holds a reference to another class library solution. I have used Unity on my service layer and registered the container via WebApiConfig.cs.
My question is, how do i go about using Unity on Android side in order to run on start up, would be grateful if code was included. I dont want to new-up the container through main activity of Android. I want the container to register behind the process i.e. AppStart or Global asax where it does it for you for MVC apps. Is there a way to do it for Android? Also I noticed on Main Activity I am unable to create constructor. I guess this isnt possible but how do I go about holding object reference to my Class Library solution ? example that i attempted to do:
private IExample _ex;
MainActivity(IExample ex){
_ex = ex; //depedency Injection rather than newing it up
}
public void DoSomething(){
_ex.HelloWorld();
}
Is there a way to do it via Attribute ? Also for each of my layer do I need to install and create container in order to resolve current solution dependency ? or can I use container from android which would resolve all dependency in each layer as DDD architecture goes from outer to inner ?
In terms of setting up DI at startup you can create a custom Application implementation like so:
// Must include this attribute so that Android knows we want to use this as our Application implementation
[Application(Icon = "#drawable/Icon", Label = "#string/ApplicationName")]
public class MyApplication : Application
{
public override void OnCreate()
{
base.OnCreate();
// Do your DI initialization/registration here
}
}
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by not being able to create a constructor on the main activity. You can create constructors for any activity you feel like. You don't always see it though because people tend to put their initialization logic in OnCreate.

Setting Session in MVC3 when the class not inherited from controller or helper

I would like to write and read data to Session even if my class not inherited from controller or helper. Something like this:
public class User
{
public void CreateSession()
{
Session["key"]=data;
}
public void ReadSession()
{
data=(string)Session["key"];
}
}
Important thing - I need to get instance of User class in some actions
and views. Am I be able to inherit User class from controller or
helper. Because I've already try that, but I got some errors.
How can I achive this?
Thanks in advance.
HttpContext.Session will work, it's a static available anywhere to an assembly that references System.Web.
If your code is in your main website assembly, this should work well. If it's not, you'll have to create a dependency on System.Web which you may or may not want to do.
You should do these kind of things in your controller.
You can access HttpContext directly, but that's not "the ASP.NET MVC way", and you loose some of the advantages of using MVC in the first place. Like making testing harder, and directly coupling your application to HttpContext...
Also, if it's a new session, or Session["key"] is not set for some reason, data=(string)Session["key"]; would throw a null reference exception.

Using StructureMap in ASP.NET MVC Areas

I'm using StructureMap for IoC and it works fine for regular controllers but I can't make it work with Areas. I have the following AccountController in Administration Area:
public class AccountController : Controller
{
private readonly IFormsAuthenticationService formsService;
private readonly IMembershipService membershipService;
public AccountController(IFormsAuthenticationService formsService, IMembershipService membershipService)
{
this.formsService = formsService;
this.membershipService = membershipService;
}
...
}
And here's the error:
System.InvalidOperationException: An error occurred when trying to create a controller of type 'Foo.Areas.Administration.Controllers.AccountController'. Make sure that the controller has a parameterless public constructor. ---> System.MissingMethodException: No parameterless constructor defined for this object.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
EDIT
StructureMap couldn't resolve MembershipProvider.
Here's the solution:
For<MembershipProvider>().Use(Membership.Providers["AspNetSqlMembershipProvider"]);
I doubt that this is a problem with areas because I am using them happily. It is more likely a pure IOC issue. You get this error when one of the injected services cannot be resolved by your container, which has the consequence that the container cannot match a signature for the constructor and tries to fall back to the empty constructor, which doesn't exist, rightly.
So, my first instinct would be to make sure that the two injected services are available. It is possible that one of them did not get created properly; a common cause is that the Membership provider cannot connect to its database, or similar.
For diagnosing, in your global.asax, after the container has been created, see if you can manually resolve those two services. I don't know SM, but something like:
var s = container.Resolve<IMembershipService>();
Satisfy yourself that both those services can be resolved.

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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