DI parameters to class library without controller - dependency-injection

So I'm not sure if I'm just missing something, but basically every example of DI I see with asp.net core shows passing of parameters from the appSettings.json file through a constructor in the controller and then to anything else.
Can I bypass the Controller and just inject directly a Class Library?
For an example of what I'm trying to do, let's say I have appSettings.json with
"EmailSettings":{"smtpServer":"mail.example.com", "port":123, "sendErrorsTo":"errors#example.com"}
Then a Class Library for EmailServices
EmailSettings.cs
public class EmailSettings{
public string smtpServer {get;set;}
public int port {get;set;}
public string sendErrorsTo {get;set;}
}
IEmailService.cs
public interface IEmailService
{
void SendErrorEmail(string method, Exception ex);
}
and EmailService.cs
public class EmailService :IEmailService
{
private readonly EmailSettings _emailSettings;
public EmailService(EmailSettings emailSettings)
{
_emailSettings = emailSettings;
}
public void SendErrorEmail(string method, Exception ex)
{
....
}
}
Startup.cs in the main asp.net core application
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
...
services.Configure<EmailSettings>(Configuration.GetSection("EmailSettings"));
services.AddScoped<IEmailService, EmailService>(p => {
return new EmailService(p.GetService<EmailSettings>());
});
...
}
Without loading the EmailServices or the appsetting.json parameters through the controller and then into the BusinessLayer class library, I want to be able to call the SendErrorEmail from BusinessLayer (or any other place).
DoWork.cs
public MakeItWork()
{
try
{...}
catch (exception ex)
{
IEmailService.SendErrorEmail("BAL - MakeItWork",ex)
}
}
But it just fails with a null exception. The DI in the startup doesn't create the EmailService in place of the IEmailService, and I'm going to guess the parameters are not there either.
Thanks for any help you can give.
----EDIT----
I ended up just switching to using AutoFac for DI. It's able to accomplish what I was looking for. Accepted the answer below to give Phantom the points for trying to assist.

A couple of things:
In your MakeItWork() method, you have code that "calls" a method using the interface name - not even sure how that will compile. You need to use an object of a class that implements that interface to actually make method calls at runtime. For example, in your DoWork class, you could have a constructor requesting for an instance of a class that implements the IEmailService interface and store it for future use in other methods.
Second, in the Services collection, you are adding a "Scoped" dependency (in the ConfigureServices method). A "scoped" dependency is only created upon a (http)Request, typically via calls to controllers. From your code and your explanation, it looks like you are wanting to add a Singleton object for your IEmailService interface. So, instead of adding a Scoped dependency use AddSingleton - as you have done, you can also create the specific object in the call to AddSingleton - that means this object will be provided every time you request it (through class constructors, for example). If you are using it as a singleton, you should also make sure that it is thread safe. Alternatively, you can also add the dependency using AddTransient - if you use this, a new object will be created every time you request it.
Update:
Sample Code
Modify your ConfigureServices to make the EmailService as Transient (this means a new object every time this service is requested):
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
...
services.Configure<EmailSettings>(Configuration.GetSection("EmailSettings"));
services.AddTransient<IEmailService, EmailService>();
...
}
Your "DoWork" class should request the EMail Service in the constructor:
public class DoWork()
{
private IEmailService _emailService;
//Dependency should be injected here
public DoWork(IEmailService emailService)
{
_emailService = emailService;
}
public MakeItWork()
{
try
{...}
catch (exception ex)
{
//Use the saved email service object to do your work
_emailService.SendErrorEmail("BAL - MakeItWork", ex)
}
}
}
It doesn't end here. The question remains as to how you are going to create an Object of the DoWork class. For this, one idea is to create an interface for the DoWork class itself and then setup the container for that interface as well. Then wherever you would want to use the DoWork implementation you can "request" the interface for DoWork. Or use the container directly to create an instance.

Related

Resolve all already created service instances from .NET service provider

I would like to request all created instances from a transient service via the IServiceProvdier. My problem is that requesting them seems to create additional instances instead of retrieving only the already existing instances.
I have a service interface and implementation
public interface ISomeService {}
public class SomeService : ISomeService
{
public SomeService()
{
}
}
It is registered transient
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddTransient<ISomeService, SomeService>();
}
Another service where I try to get all already created services
public class AnotherService
{
// calls the constructor of SomeService
//public AnotherService(IEnumerable<ISomeService> instances) {}
public AnotherService(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
{
// calls the constructor of SomeService
//IEnumerable<ISomeService> instances = serviceProvider.GetServices<ISomeService>();
// calls the constructor of SomeService
//IEnumerable<ISomeService> instances = serviceProvider.GetRequiredServices<ISomeService>();
}
}
I don't know why the constructor of SomeService is called but it definitly seems to do it due to the calls of Get...
Anyone managed to get the list of instances without creating one?
By definition a transient service will always be created each time you request the service provider or the DI system to resolve it.
If you want to reuse the same instances you can register services with a different lifetime
services.AddSingleton<ISomeService, SomeService>();
or
services.AddScoped<ISomeService, SomeService>();
if you register the dependency as a singleton than there will be a single instance of there service for the entire application lifetime.
if you register the dependency with the scoped lifetime than a new instance will be created for each scope. In Asp.Net a scope consists of a request.
If you want your dependency to be transient and want to have track of all the instances that have been created you can do a little trick using static references:
public static class SomeServiceReferences {
public static readonly IList<ISomeService> References { get; } = new List<ISomeService>();
}
public class SomeService: ISomeService {
public SomeService() {
SsomeServiceReferences.References.Add(this);
}
}
but I don't reccomend this approach cause holding the reference of those dependencies might cause performance problems and if you need to do such a thing there might be some problems with the design of your application.

Entity Framework Core Error: No parameterless constructor defined for this object

At the point of creating a new MVC Controller:
after I click Add button, I get the following Error:
Here is my simple Context class:
public class MainDbContext : DbContext
{
public MainDbContext(DbContextOptions<MainDbContext> options) : base(options)
{
}
public DbSet<Todo> Todo { get; set; }
}
and my simple model:
public partial class Todo
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string TaskName { get; set; }
}
I have made some search on this issue, most of the posts point to a dropdown list or a SelectList method using MVC, but for my case it is a Controller creation fail, so it seems to be an Entity Framework Core issue
Any help ?
Thanks to #poke comment above, and to this link: "Use Code First with connection by convention", by modifying the context class as follows C# will call base class parameterless constructor by default
public class MainDbContext : DbContext
{
public MainDbContext()
// C# will call base class parameterless constructor by default
{
}
}
It's a tooling error. Most likely, you're running Visual Studio 2015, which doesn't have full .NET Core support. Basically, in previous versions of EF, DbContext had a parameterless constructor, and this version of the scaffold generator is depending on that. In EF Core, DbContext does not have a parameterless constructor, so the generator is choking on that.
If you're using VS2015, upgrade to 2017. It's time. Aside from that, you don't need this anyways, and it's only leading you down a bad path. All the scaffold does is create a new class under Controller, named {Name}Controller that inherits from Controller. Then it creates a folder named {Name} in Views and adds some basic HTML for doing CRUD. You'll end up replacing most of this HTML anyways. Additionally, the scaffold requires you to work with an actual entity class, which is the last thing you should ever be doing. You should always accept user input via a view model and then map that posted data onto your entity class before finally saving the entity. Look at the scaffold being broken as an excellent opportunity to start learning how to create good code.
Here's the solution from Microsoft. It suggest to create a design-time class that instantiates the connection to a database.
A solution
Because DbContext constructor is expecting DbContextOptions, AddDbContext must be set within the Startup Configuration method.
public class MainDbContext : DbContext
{
public MainDbContext(DbContextOptions<MainDbContext> options) : base(options)
{
}
public DbSet<Todo> Todo { get; set; }
}
Within projects startup.cs set AddDbContext
services.AddDbContext<MainDbContext>(o => o.UseSqlServer(#"Data Source=SOURCE;Initial
Catalog=DBCatalog;User ID=ZX;Password=******;Connect
Timeout=30;Encrypt=False;TrustServerCertificate=False;
ApplicationIntent=ReadWrite;MultiSubnetFailover=False"));
ConfigureServices method:
Set database:
UseSqlServer,
UseInMemeoryDatabase,
UseSqlite,
etc...
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddDbContext<MainDbContext>(o => o.UseSqlServer(#"Data Source=SOURCE;Initial
Catalog=DBCatalog;User ID=ZX;Password=******;Connect
Timeout=30;Encrypt=False;TrustServerCertificate=False;
ApplicationIntent=ReadWrite;MultiSubnetFailover=False"));
}
Make sure your project builds and runs without errors before scaffolding.
In Visual Studio 2019, I received this error while attempting to scaffold a new controller because I had a missing comma in my JSON in appsettings.json file.
Eventually I built and tried to run and got a System.FormatException, "Could not parse the JSON file" during runtime.
Since appsettings.json was the only JSON file I was editing recently I knew it had to be appsettings.json.
Scaffolding, code generators, and EF migrations invoke runtime code, this means even if your code compiles, if it throws runtime errors those could cause a problem for such actions.
FYI -
As of EF Core 2.1 parameterized constructors are allowed.
See this Microsoft article for more information.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/modeling/constructors
the solution is check the file Startup.cs if you have in the void ConfigureServices the DataContext, for example in SQLServer my Startup.cs is
public class Startup
{
// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container.
// For more information on how to configure your application, visit https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=398940
public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
{
Configuration = configuration;
}
public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddDbContext<YourDataContext>(options => options.UseSqlServer(Configuration.GetConnectionString("YourConnectionStrings")));
}
// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to configure the HTTP request pipeline.
public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
{
if (env.IsDevelopment())
{
app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
}
app.UseRouting();
app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
{
endpoints.MapGet("/", async context =>
{
await context.Response.WriteAsync("Hello World!");
});
});
}
}
if you not have this services the error is
no parameterless constructor defined for type YourDataContextName
I had the same problem and I add this line to Startup.cs on the ConfigureServices method.
It worked fine for me:
services.AddControllersWithViews();
Just add an empty constructor to your dbcontext and this solves the problem.

No default Instance is registered and cannot be automatically determined for type

The definition of my interface is as follows:
public interface IApplicationSettings
{
string LoggerName { get; }
string NumberOfResultsPerPage { get; }
string EmailAddress { get; }
string Credential { get; }
}
The implementation of this interface is given below:
public class WebConfigApplicationSettings : IApplicationSettings
{
public string LoggerName
{
get { return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["LoggerName"]; }
}
public string NumberOfResultsPerPage
{
get { return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["NumberOfResultsPerPage"]; }
}
public string EmailAddress
{
get { return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["EmailAddress"]; }
}
public string Credential
{
get { return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Credential"]; }
}
}
I also created a factory class to obtain the instance of the concrete implementation of WebConfigSettings as follows:
public class ApplicationSettingsFactory
{
private static IApplicationSettings _applicationSettings;
public static void InitializeApplicationSettingsFactory(
IApplicationSettings applicationSettings)
{
_applicationSettings = applicationSettings;
}
public static IApplicationSettings GetApplicationSettings()
{
return _applicationSettings;
}
}
Then I resolved dependency as follows:
public class DefaultRegistry : Registry {
public DefaultRegistry() {
Scan(
scan => {
scan.TheCallingAssembly();
scan.WithDefaultConventions();
scan.With(new ControllerConvention());
});
For<IApplicationSettings>().Use<WebConfigApplicationSettings>();
ApplicationSettingsFactory.InitializeApplicationSettingsFactory
(ObjectFactory.GetInstance<IApplicationSettings>());
}
}
Now when i running my application it throw me following exception:
Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
and the Inner Exception is
No default Instance is registered and cannot be automatically determined for type 'Shoppingcart.Infrastructure.Configuration.IApplicationSettings'\r\n\r\nThere is no configuration specified for Shoppingcart.Infrastructure.Configuration.IApplicationSettings\r\n\r\n1.) Container.GetInstance(Shoppingcart.Infrastructure.Configuration.IApplicationSettings)\r\n
I am using StructureMap for MVC5
The reason your code isn't working is because when you call ObjectFactory.GetInstance<IApplicationSettings>(), your registry hasn't been registered and thus, StructureMap's configuration is incomplete.
I believe what you're trying to do is the following (tested and works):
public class ApplicationSettingsFactory
{
public ApplicationSettingsFactory(WebConfigApplicationSettings applicationSettings)
{
_applicationSettings = applicationSettings;
}
private static IApplicationSettings _applicationSettings;
public IApplicationSettings GetApplicationSettings()
{
return _applicationSettings;
}
}
With your registry configured like this:
public DefaultRegistry() {
Scan(scan => {
scan.TheCallingAssembly();
scan.WithDefaultConventions();
scan.With(new ControllerConvention());
});
this.For<IApplicationSettings>().Use(ctx => ctx.GetInstance<ApplicationSettingsFactory>().GetApplicationSettings());
}
I can't really tell you why your registration fails in StructureMap, but if you allow me, I would like to feedback on your design.
Your design and code violates a few basic principles:
You are violating the Interface Segregation Princple (ISP).
The ISP describes that interfaces should be narrow (role interfaces) and should not contain more members than a consumer uses. You however defined an application wide IApplicationSettings interface and your intention is to inject into any consumer that needs some configuration settings. Changes are really slim however that there is a consumer that actually needs all settings. This forces the consumer to depend on all members, it makes the API more complex, while it just needs one.
You are violating the Open/Closed Principle (OCP).
The OCP describes that it should be possible to add new features without making changes to existing classes in the code base. You will however find yourself updating the IApplicationSettings interface and its implementations (you will probably have a fake/mock implementation as well) every time a new setting is added.
Configuration values aren't read at startup, which makes it harder to verify the application's configuration.
When a consumer makes a call to a property of your IApplicationSettings abstraction, you are forwarding the call to the ConfigurationManager.AppSettings. This means that if the value isn't available or incorrectly formatted, the application will fail at runtime. Since some of your configuration values will only be used in certain cases, this forces you to test every such case after you deployed the application to find out whether the system is configured correctly.
Solution
The solution to these problems is actually quite simple:
Load configuration values at start-up.
Inject configuration values directly into a component that needs that exact value.
Loading the configuration values directly at start-up, allows the application to fail fast in case of a configuration error, and prevents the configuration from being read over and over again needlessly.
Injecting configuration values directly into a component, prevents that component from having to depend on an ever-changing interface. It makes it really clear what a component is depending upon, and bakes this information in during application start-up.
This doesn't mean though that you can't use some sort of ApplicationSettings DTO. Such DTO is exactly what I use in my applications. This basically looks as follows:
public static Container Bootstrap() {
return Bootstrap(new ApplicationSettings
{
LoggerName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["LoggerName"],
NumberOfResultsPerPage = int.Parse(
ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["NumberOfResultsPerPage"]),
EmailAddress = new MailAddres(
ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["EmailAddress"]),
Credential = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Credential"],
});
}
public static Container Bootstrap(ApplicationSettings settings) {
var container = new Container();
container.RegisterSingle<ILogger>(
new SmtpLogger(settings.LoggerName, settings.EmailAddress));
container.RegisterSingle<IPagingProvider>(
new PagingProvider(settings.NumberOfResultsPerPage));
// Etc
return container;
}
In the code above you'll see that the creation of the ApplicationSettings DTO is split from the configuration of the container. This way I can test my DI configuration inside an integration test, where the start-up projects configuration file is not available.
Also note that I supply the configuration values directly to the constructors of components that require it.
You might be skeptic, because it might seem to pollute your DI configuration, because you have dozens of objects that require to be set with the same configuration value. For instance, your application might have dozens of repositories and each repository needs a connection string.
But my experience is that is you have many components that need the same configuration value; you are missing an abstraction. But don't create an IConnectionStringSettings class, because that would recreate the same problem again and in this case you aren't really making an abstraction. Instead, abstract the behavior that uses this configuration value! In the case of the connection string, create an IConnectionFactory or IDbContextFactory abstraction that allows creation of SqlConnection's or DbContext classes. This completely hides the fact that there is a connection string from any consumer, and allows them to call connectionFactory.CreateConnection() instead of having to fiddle around with the connection and the connection string.
My experience is that makes the application code much cleaner, and improves the verifiability of the application.
Thanks every one for responses. I found my solution. The solution is instead of using Default Registry I created another class for resolve the dependencies. Inside the class I used
ObjectFactory.Initialize(x =>
{
x.AddRegistry<ControllerRegistry>();
});
instead of
IContainer Initialize() {
return new Container(c => c.AddRegistry<ControllerRegistry>());
}
Then inside ControllerRegistry I resolved dependencies as follows:
// Application Settings
For<IApplicationSettings>().Use<WebConfigApplicationSettings>();
Then I called that class inside Global.asax as follows:
Bootstrap.ConfigureDependencies();
Finally inside Global.asax I resolved dependency for Factory class as follows:
ApplicationSettingsFactory.InitializeApplicationSettingsFactory
(ObjectFactory.GetInstance<IApplicationSettings>());
My entire code is given below:
Bootstrap class (newly created)
public class Bootstrap
{
public static void ConfigureDependencies()
{
ObjectFactory.Initialize(x =>
{
x.AddRegistry<ControllerRegistry>();
});
}
public class ControllerRegistry : Registry
{
public ControllerRegistry()
{
// Application Settings
For<IApplicationSettings>().Use<WebConfigApplicationSettings>();
}
}
}
Global.asax
Bootstrap.ConfigureDependencies();
ApplicationSettingsFactory.InitializeApplicationSettingsFactory
(ObjectFactory.GetInstance<IApplicationSettings>());

Best way of having Service communicate errors to Controller

When the Service layer is only executing a task (checking if Id exists, sending an email, etc.), what is the best way for it to let the controller know if there were any errors?
Two solutions I can think of:
Always passing in an extra "broken rules" parameter by reference to the methods in the Service layer which it would update if there were any error.
Have the Service raise an exception and having the controller do a try/catch.
Are either one of these two approaches recommended? If not, what approach could I take to have the Service layer let the controller know what something went wrong (such as invalid parameter)?
Your service should collection all the broken rules and after that throw the "BrokenRuleException". Your controller will catch the "BrokenRuleException" and then use the brokenrules to update the user interface.
I created interface:
public interface IModelStateWrapper
{
void AddModelError(string name, string error);
}
Then I created implementation for every controller:
public class ControllerModelStateWrapper : IModelStateWrapper
{
private ModelStateDictionary _dictionary;
public ControllerModelStateWrapper(ModelStateDictionary dictionary)
{
_dictionary = dictionary;
}
public void AddModelError(string name, string error)
{
if (_dictionary[name] == null)
_dictionary.Add(name, new ModelState());
_dictionary[name].Errors.Add(error);
}
}
Every service implements:
public interface IModelWrapperService
{
IModelStateWrapper ModelWrapper {get;set;}
}
And then I set it in Controller:
public UserController(IUserService service)
{
_service.ModelWrapper = new ControllerModelStateWrapper(ModelState);
}
IModelStateWrapper is not the best name, because this interface can work not only with Controller.ModelState. Works pretty ok. You can easily replace IModelStateWrapper with mock or other implementation in your service tests. This solution also automatically sets ModelState as invalid.
I think that throwing the BrokenRuleException is a good choice.
Personally, I don't like to put state in a service, it's often a singleton (performed by a DI container), and only has other singletons collaborators (in my case, domain objects).

ASP.NET MVC, MVCContrib, Structuremap, getting it working as the controllerfactory?

I'm trying to get structuremap to correctly create my controllers, I'm using DI to inject an INewsService into a NewsController and thats the only constructor I have.
public class NewsController : Controller
{
private readonly INewsService newsService;
public NewsController(INewsService newsService)
{
this.newsService = newsService;
}
public ActionResult List()
{
var newsArticles = newsService.GetNews();
return View(newsArticles);
}
}
and I'm using this code to start the app
public class Application : HttpApplication
{
protected void Application_Start()
{
RegisterIoC();
RegisterViewEngine(ViewEngines.Engines);
RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
}
public static void RegisterIoC()
{
ObjectFactory.Initialize(config => {
config.UseDefaultStructureMapConfigFile = false;
config.AddRegistry<PersistenceRegistry>();
config.AddRegistry<DomainRegistry>();
config.AddRegistry<ControllerRegistry>();
});
DependencyResolver.InitializeWith(new StructureMapDependencyResolver());
ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(typeof(IoCControllerFactory));
}
}
But Structuremap doesn't seem to want to inject the INewsService and I get the error
No parameterless constructor defined for this object.
What have I missed?
I use the "Default Conventions" mechanism that StructureMap provides to avoid needing to individually configure each interface. Below is the code I use to make that work:
My Global.asax has this line in Application_Start (which uses the StructureMap factory from MvcContrib):
protected void Application_Start()
{
RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
ObjectFactory.Initialize(x =>
{
x.AddRegistry(new RepositoryRegistry());
});
ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(typeof(StructureMapControllerFactory));
}
And the RepositoryRegistry class looks like this:
public class RepositoryRegistry : Registry
{
public RepositoryRegistry()
{
Scan(x =>
{
x.Assembly("MyAssemblyName");
x.With<DefaultConventionScanner>();
});
}
}
The DefaultConventionScanner looks for pairs of Interfaces/Classes that follow the nameing convention of ISomethingOrOther and SomethingOrOther and automatically associates the latter as a concrete type for the former interface.
If you didn't want to use that default convention mechanism, then you would add code in the Registry class to explicity map each of your interfaces to the concrete types with this syntax:
ForRequestedType<ISomethingOrOther>().TheDefaultIsConcreteType<SomethingOrOther>();
Unless I'm missing something, you are not telling StructureMap what concrete type to use for INewsService. You need to add something like:
TheConcreteTypeOf<INewsService>.Is<MyConcreteNewsService>();
I don't know the exact syntax off the top of my head, but that's what you're missing. Once you specify that then it will know what instance of the INewsService to inject into the controller.
ASP.NET MVC currently instantiates controllers using the default parameterless constructor, which precludes any constructor-based dependency injection. To do that, you really need to use the MvcContrib project, which has built-in support for StructureMap (and Castle/Spring.NET/Unity), although the current documentation is non-existent (literally, you get a stub wiki page, not a good sign). Erv Walter's code sample in this thread shows how to set up the StructureMap integration.

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