ASPNET vNext Beta 8 localization - localization

Is there any way in MVC 6 (beta 8) application to get CultureInfo object, based on request Accept-Language header?
I have found we should use (not sure in which beta):
app.UseRequestLocalization(new RequestLocalizationOptions
{
RequestCultureProviders = new List<IRequestCultureProvider>
{
new AcceptLanguageHeaderRequestCultureProvider()
}
});
in startup class, but how about control? How this information is injected?

I am answering my own question. The CultureInfo is available in controller action methods using:
var cultureInfo = System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;
The catch was than Accept-Language header is case sensitive. I needed to provide lt-LT instead of lt-lt.

Related

What is the alternative for jsonp format in MVC core?

I need to return result in jsonp format while I'm using asp.net MVC Core.
In asp.net MVC we can use MVC.jsonp dll an it's work fine but what is the alternative in MVC Core because I can't find any.
public JsonpResult FunctionalitesTblList()
{
var settings = new JsonSerializerSettings();
return Jsonp(Rows, settings);
}
There was no built in ability to handle JSONP with MVC, so you were always using a third-party addition. Apparently, that library is incompatible with .NET Core. Therefore, your option is to find a similar library that is compatible or choose some other approach.
#CuongLe is correct that CORS is a better approach overall, so you should definitely investigate that. However, if you insist on JSONP, it's so simple to implement manually, you don't really need a library.
Simply, all JSONP is a is JSON passed into a "callback" function, specified by the client. In other words, if the callack was specified as "mycallback", the response should just look like:
mycallback({ "foo": "bar" });
As a result, your code simply becomes:
string json = null;
using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
{
var serializer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(Foo));
serializer.WriteObject(ms, foo);
json = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(ms.ToArray());
}
var jsonp = String.Format("{0}({1});", callback, json);
Response.ContentType = "application/javascript";
return Content(jsonp);

MVC 5 prevents access to content via Iframe

Ever since the upgrade from MVC4 to MVC5, I have noticed an extra server header added to my web pages:
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
I understand security benefits of adding this tag, but one of the pages is meant to be included inside an iframe from other projects (on other domains), this extra header is preventing this.
I have verified it is not the hosting IIS7 server that is adding the header, and when I downgraded back to MVC4 - the header is gone.
Does anyone know how to remove this default from MVC5?
MVC5 automatically adds the HTTP header X-Frame-Options with SAMEORIGIN. This prevents your site from being loaded into an iframe.
But we can turn this off in Application_Start in the Global.asax.cs.
Example
protected void Application_Start()
{
AntiForgeryConfig.SuppressXFrameOptionsHeader = true;
}
Update
I have written a post about this MVC5 prevents your website being loaded in an IFRAME
Try something like this in Global.asax:
protected void Application_PreSendRequestHeaders(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
HttpContext.Current.Response.Headers.Remove("X-Frame-Options");
}
EDIT:
Look at answer of Colin Bacon. It is more correct than mine.
In short - don't remove this header if you don't want to run your site in IFRAME because it will open forgery vulnerability. But if you still want to remove it - use AntiForgeryConfig.SuppressXFrameOptionsHeader = true; in Application_Start, it is more cleaner way for doing this.
If you want a little more flexibility, here's an ActionAttribute that adds/removes headers based on a whitelist. If the referrer isn't in the whitelist, then the SAMEORIGIN header is left in place. I was going to paste the code, but SO complains about the length.
https://long2know.com/2016/06/asp-net-anti-forgery-xframe-options/
Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to disable the X-Frame-Options across the whole site.I've created an ASP.NET MVC filter which removes this header and I simply apply this filter to the portions of the site that are used in iFrames e.g. widgets.
public class AllowDifferentOrigin : ActionFilterAttribute, IActionFilter
{
public override void OnResultExecuted(ResultExecutedContext filterContext)
{
filterContext.HttpContext.Response.Headers.Remove("X-Frame-Options");
base.OnResultExecuted(filterContext);
}
}
Here is a replacement Extension method for the HtmlHelper class. It will first clear all X-Frame-Options headers and then add back a single X-Frame-Options header normally added by the built-in AntiForgeryToken method.
This technique respects the SuppressXFrameOptionsHeader setting, but has the downside of removing all previously added X-Frame-Options headers, even those with values other than SAMEORIGIN.
public static MvcHtmlString AntiForgeryTokenSingleHeader(this HtmlHelper html)
{
string token = AntiForgery.GetHtml().ToString();
HttpResponseBase httpResponse = html.ViewContext.HttpContext.Response;
httpResponse.Headers.Remove("X-Frame-Options");
if (!AntiForgeryConfig.SuppressXFrameOptionsHeader)
{
httpResponse.AddHeader("X-Frame-Options", "SAMEORIGIN");
}
return new MvcHtmlString(token);
}

Best way to structure the code for an ASP.NET MVC REST API that is decoupled from the data formats?

I am creating a REST API in ASP.NET MVC. I want the format of the request and response to be JSON or XML, however I also want to make it easy to add another data format and easy to create just XML first and add JSON later.
Basically I want to specify all of the inner workings of my API GET/POST/PUT/DELETE requests without having to think about what format the data came in as or what it will leave as and I could easily specify the format later or change it per client. So one guy could use JSON, one guy could use XML, one guy could use XHTML. Then later I could add another format too without having to rewrite a ton of code.
I do NOT want to have to add a bunch of if/then statements to the end of all my Actions and have that determine the data format, I'm guessing there is some way I can do this using interfaces or inheritance or the like, just not sure the best approach.
Serialization
The ASP.NET pipeline is designed for this. Your controller actions don't return the result to the client, but rather a result object (ActionResult) which is then processed in further steps in the ASP.NET pipeline. You can override the ActionResult class. Note that FileResult, JsonResult, ContentResult and FileContentResult are built-in as of MVC3.
In your case, it's probably best to return something like a RestResult object. That object is now responsible to format the data according to the user request (or whatever additional rules you may have):
public class RestResult<T> : ActionResult
{
public override void ExecuteResult(ControllerContext context)
{
string resultString = string.Empty;
string resultContentType = string.Empty;
var acceptTypes = context.RequestContext.HttpContext.Request.AcceptTypes;
if (acceptTypes == null)
{
resultString = SerializeToJsonFormatted();
resultContentType = "application/json";
}
else if (acceptTypes.Contains("application/xml") || acceptTypes.Contains("text/xml"))
{
resultString = SerializeToXml();
resultContentType = "text/xml";
}
context.RequestContext.HttpContext.Response.Write(resultString);
context.RequestContext.HttpContext.Response.ContentType = resultContentType;
}
}
Deserialization
This is a bit more tricky. We're using a Deserialize<T> method on the base controller class. Please note that this code is not production ready, because reading the entire response can overflow your server:
protected T Deserialize<T>()
{
Request.InputStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(Request.InputStream);
var rawData = sr.ReadToEnd(); // DON'T DO THIS IN PROD!
string contentType = Request.ContentType;
// Content-Type can have the format: application/json; charset=utf-8
// Hence, we need to do some substringing:
int index = contentType.IndexOf(';');
if(index > 0)
contentType = contentType.Substring(0, index);
contentType = contentType.Trim();
// Now you can call your custom deserializers.
if (contentType == "application/json")
{
T result = ServiceStack.Text.JsonSerializer.DeserializeFromString<T>(rawData);
return result;
}
else if (contentType == "text/xml" || contentType == "application/xml")
{
throw new HttpException(501, "XML is not yet implemented!");
}
}
Just wanted to put this on here for the sake of reference, but I have discovered that using ASP.NET MVC may not be the best way to do this:
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
provides a unified programming model
for rapidly building service-oriented
applications that communicate across
the web and the enterprise
Web application developers today are
facing new challenges around how to
expose data and services. The cloud,
move to devices, and shift toward
browser-based frameworks such as
jQuery are all placing increasing
demands on surfacing such
functionality in a web-friendly way.
WCF's Web API offering is focused on
providing developers the tools to
compose simple yet powerful
applications that play in this new
world. For developers that want to go
further than just exposing over HTTP,
our API will allow you to access all
the richness of HTTP and to apply
RESTful constraints in your
application development. This work is
an evolution of the HTTP/ASP.NET AJAX
features already shipped in .Net 4.0.
http://wcf.codeplex.com/
However I will not select this as the answer because it doesn't actually answer the question despite the fact that this is the route I am going to take. I just wanted to put it here to be helpful for future researchers.

Is it possible to copy/clone HttpContext of a web request

What's the easiest way to clone current request's HttpContext instance?
I'm developing an app in Asp.net MVC v1. I upgraded the regular PartialView capabilities to actually have sub-controllers that act very similar, but have their own context. When you use PartialViews you have to fill view data for the partial view in your main view's controller action. I created my own functionality that makes it possible to call controller actions from within a view. This way I get:
I don't have to provide sub-view's data in my main view's controller action
sub controller methods can manipulate data more encapsulated without any relation to other views/controllers
The problem is that each sub-controller request uses HttpContext. So when I set some HttpContext.Item in a sub-controller it actually populates HttpContext of the actual request.
That's why I want to clone HttpContext. I'm already using:
HttpContext subContext = new HttpContext(request, response);
// what happened to Session, User, Items etc. properties?
but this doesn't set anything else than request and response. But I would probably also need other properties and collections... Like Session, Items, User... etc.
While the "Not Possible" answer is correct, there is an alternative that is much cleaner than writing values into the current context and then rewriting back to its original state. The solution is to make a new HttpContext object entirely that is based on the URL of your choosing.
// A new request/response is constructed to using a new URL.
// The new response is using a StreamWriter with null stream as a backing stream
// which doesn't consume resources
using (var nullWriter = new StreamWriter(Stream.Null))
{
var newRequestUri = new Uri("http://www.somewhere.com/some-resource/");
var newRequest = new HttpRequest("", newRequestUri.ToString(), newRequestUri.Query);
var newResponse = new HttpResponse(nullWriter);
var newContext = new HttpContextWrapper(new HttpContext(newRequest, newResponse));
// Work with the new context here before it is disposed...
}
Reference: https://github.com/maartenba/MvcSiteMapProvider/issues/278#issuecomment-34905271
Not possible
I guess an actual deep cloning is not possible because of server session state. Cloning would also have to clone this value, which is web server specific internal resource that is intrinsically static and can not be cloned. In this case a web server would have multiple Session objects for instance.
Workaround
Anyway. The workaround was to set additional context values before instantiating sub-controller processing. After processing is finished I reverted values back to original. So I actually had context as it was before.
For ASP.Net Core/.Net 5 the following will work (based on the ASP.Net Core source code for SignalR, if you need more features just add them).
public static HttpContext Clone(this HttpContext httpContext, bool copyBody)
{
var existingRequestFeature = httpContext.Features.Get<IHttpRequestFeature>();
var requestHeaders = new Dictionary<string, StringValues>(existingRequestFeature.Headers.Count, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
foreach (var header in existingRequestFeature.Headers)
{
requestHeaders[header.Key] = header.Value;
}
var requestFeature = new HttpRequestFeature
{
Protocol = existingRequestFeature.Protocol,
Method = existingRequestFeature.Method,
Scheme = existingRequestFeature.Scheme,
Path = existingRequestFeature.Path,
PathBase = existingRequestFeature.PathBase,
QueryString = existingRequestFeature.QueryString,
RawTarget = existingRequestFeature.RawTarget,
Headers = new HeaderDictionary(requestHeaders),
};
if(copyBody)
{
// We need to buffer first, otherwise the body won't be copied
// Won't work if the body stream was accessed already without calling EnableBuffering() first or without leaveOpen
httpContext.Request.EnableBuffering();
httpContext.Request.Body.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
requestFeature.Body = existingRequestFeature.Body;
}
var features = new FeatureCollection();
features.Set<IHttpRequestFeature>(requestFeature);
// Unless we need the response we can ignore it...
features.Set<IHttpResponseFeature>(new HttpResponseFeature());
features.Set<IHttpResponseBodyFeature>(new StreamResponseBodyFeature(Stream.Null));
var newContext = new DefaultHttpContext(features);
if (copyBody)
{
// Rewind for any future use...
httpContext.Request.Body.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
}
// Can happen if the body was not copied
if(httpContext.Request.HasFormContentType && httpContext.Request.Form.Count != newContext.Request.Form.Count)
{
newContext.Request.Form = new Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.FormCollection(httpContext.Request.Form.ToDictionary(f => f.Key, f => f.Value));
}
return newContext;
}
The ASP.NET MVC framework intentionally makes dependencies to abstract classes with all members virtual. That simply says - extensibility.
Controllers depend on HttpContextBase, not HttpContext. Perhaps you can make your sub-controllers depend on HttpContextBase too so you can wrap it.
Just my 2 cents.
I've used
<% Html.RenderAction("Action", "Controller"); %>
to great effect, allowing me to create completely isolated/escapsulated actions without resorting to complex code. This would seem to offer the same functionality without the same complexity.
The rendered views are standard partial views and the controller actions just like any other.

How do I support ETags in ASP.NET MVC?

How do I support ETags in ASP.NET MVC?
#Elijah Glover's answer is part of the answer, but not really complete. This will set the ETag, but you're not getting the benefits of ETags without checking it on the server side. You do that with:
var requestedETag = Request.Headers["If-None-Match"];
if (requestedETag == eTagOfContentToBeReturned)
return new HttpStatusCodeResult(HttpStatusCode.NotModified);
Also, another tip is that you need to set the cacheability of the response, otherwise by default it's "private" and the ETag won't be set in the response:
Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.ServerAndPrivate);
So a full example:
public ActionResult Test304(string input)
{
var requestedETag = Request.Headers["If-None-Match"];
var responseETag = LookupEtagFromInput(input); // lookup or generate etag however you want
if (requestedETag == responseETag)
return new HttpStatusCodeResult(HttpStatusCode.NotModified);
Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.ServerAndPrivate);
Response.Cache.SetETag(responseETag);
return GetResponse(input); // do whatever work you need to obtain the result
}
ETAG's in MVC are the same as WebForms or HttpHandlers.
You need a way of creating the ETAG value, the best way I have found is using a File MD5 or ShortGuid.
Since .net accepts a string as a ETAG, you can set it easily using
String etag = GetETagValue(); //e.g. "00amyWGct0y_ze4lIsj2Mw"
Response.Cache.SetETag(etag);
Video from MIX, at the end they use ETAG's with REST

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