I am newbie in ASP.NET MVC platform and I faced with the following problem.
I am using ActionFilterAttribute to do some routine work before and after action method run. The problems is that I need to get instance of the attribute in action method to read some properties which was set in OnActionExecuting method. For example
public class SomeController : Controller{
public SomeController(){ }
[Some]
public ActionResult Index(){
SomeModel = someRepository.GetSomeModel();
//get instance of some attribute and read SomeProperty
return View(SomeModel);
}
}
public class SomeAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute{
public int SomeProperty { get; set; }
public SomeAttribute(){ }
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
var parameters = filterContext.ActionParameters;
//Here to set SomeProperty depends on parameters
}
public override void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext filterContext)
{
//do some work
}
}
Any ideas?
Filter attributes must be designed to be thread-safe. The framework makes no guarantees that a single instance of your filter attribute will only service one request at a time. Given this, you cannot mutate attribute instance state from within the OnActionExecuting / OnActionExecuted methods.
Consider one of these as alternatives:
Use HttpContext.Items to store the value in OnActionExecuting, then read it from the action method. You can access HttpContext via the filterContext parameter passed to OnActionExecuting.
Put the property on the controller instead of the attribute, then have the OnActionExecuting method cast the controller to SomeController and set the property directly from within that method. This will work since the framework does by default guarantee that controller instances are transient; a single controller instance will never service more than one request.
Option 1: Your ActionFilter can add information to the ViewModel, e.g.
filterContext.Controller.ViewData["YourKey"] = "Value to add";
Option 2: You can put code in your base Controller class that finds all the attributes that have been applied to the method that is executing, and you can put them in a member variable that the Action method can then use.
e.g.
protected override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
var attrs = filterContext.ActionDescriptor.GetCustomAttributes(true).OfType<Some>();
...
}
Edit: And as others have noted, trying to mutate the attribute isn't going to work.
Sorry, I do not believe this is possible. Since the value of SomeProperty must be based on parameters sent into the constructor of the attribute, it must be easy to calculate. I would suggest adding some static methods to get the value from within the action.
Related
Is there any useful hook in ASP.NET MVC (MVC4) which can let you access the Action method parameter (View model) before the action method becomes invoked, and then also (e.g. depending on the value of something you checked in the action method parameter) let you prevent the action method from being invoked, i.e. instead either forward the view model object (action method parameter) to another action method or directly to some view (i.e. without any further processing in an action method) ?
If you do not understand the question, please see the code example below which should illustrate the kind of code I am looking for...
(though I do not know if there actually exists such kind of interface and a possibility to hook an implementation into the MVC framework)
If this is indeed possible, I would like to see an answer with code example about how to do it (and not just a response with someone claiming that e.g. "try using method 'ActionFilterAttribute.OnActionExecuting' or 'IModelBinder.BindModel' " because I have already tried those and could not make it work).
Also, please respect that I do not want this thread to become a discussion about WHY to do it, but want to see HOW to do it.
(i.e. I am not interested in getting into discussions with responses such as "What are you actually trying to achieve?" or "There are probably better things of doing what you want to do...")
The question can be split into three subquestions/code examples as my own code samples below try to illustrate:
(but would like them "refactored" into REAL code with usage of real existing types)
(obviously, every type below which includes the substring "Some" is something I have made up, and I am looking for the corresponding real thing ...)
(1) Example of how to get access to (and potentially modify) view model objects (action method parameters) in a generic place before the actual action method is invoked with the view model object parameter.
The kind of code example I am looking for would probably be similar to below but do not know what kind of interface to use and how to register it to be able to do something like below:
public class SomeClass: ISomeInterface { // How to register this kind of hook in Application_Start ?
public void SomeMethodSomewhere(SomeActionMethodContext actionMethodContext, object actionMethodParameterViewModel) {
string nameOfTheControllerAboutToBeInvoked = actionMethodContext.ControllerName;
string nameOfTheActionMethodAboutToBeInvoked = actionMethodContext.MethodName;
// the above strings are not used below but just used for illustrating that the "context object" contains information about the action method to become invoked by the MVC framework
if(typeof(IMyBaseInterfaceForAllMyViewModels).IsAssignableFrom(actionMethodParameterViewModel.GetType())) {
IMyBaseInterfaceForAllMyViewModels viewModel = (IMyBaseInterfaceForAllMyViewModels) actionMethodParameterViewModel;
// check something in the view model:
if(viewModel.MyFirstGeneralPropertyInAllViewModels == "foo") {
// modify something in the view model before it will be passed to the target action method
viewModel.MySecondGeneralPropertyInAllViewModels = "bar";
}
}
}
}
(2) Example of how to prevent the targeted action method from being executed and instead invoke another action method.
The example might be an extension of the above example, with something like below:
public void SomeMethodSomewhere(SomeActionMethodContext actionMethodContext, object actionMethodParameterViewModel) {
... same as above ...
if(viewModel.MyFirstGeneralPropertyInAllViewModels == "foo") {
actionMethodContext.ControllerName = "SomeOtherController";
actionMethodContext.MethodName = "SomeOtherActionMethod";
// The above is just one example of how I imagine this kind of thing could be implemented with changing properties, and below is another example of doing it with a method invocation:
SomeHelper.PreventCurrentlyTargetedActionMethodFromBecomingExecutedAndInsteadExecuteActionMethod("SomeOtherController", "SomeOtherActionMethod", actionMethodParameterViewModel);
// Note that I do _NOT_ want to trigger a new http request with something like the method "Controller.RedirectToAction"
}
(3) Example of how to prevent the normal action method from being executed and instead forward the view model object directly to a view without any further processing.
The example would be an extension of the first above example, with something like below:
public void SomeMethodSomewhere(SomeActionMethodContext actionMethodContext, object actionMethodParameterViewModel) {
... same as the first example above ...
if(viewModel.MyFirstGeneralPropertyInAllViewModels == "foo") {
// the below used razor view must of course be implemented with a proper type for the model (e.g. interface 'IMyBaseInterfaceForAllMyViewModels' as used in first example above)
SomeHelper.PreventCurrentlyTargetedActionMethodFromBecomingExecutedAndInsteadForwardViewModelToView("SomeViewName.cshtml", actionMethodParameterViewModel);
}
You could use an action filter and override the OnActionExecuting event:
public class MyActionFilterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
...
}
}
Now let's see what useful information you could extract from this filterContext argument that is passed to this method. The property you should be looking for is called ActionParameters and represents an IDictionary<string, object>. As its name suggests this property contains all the parameters that are passed to the controller action by name and value.
So let's suppose that you have the following controller action:
[MyActionFilter]
public ActionResult Index(MyViewModel model)
{
...
}
Here's how you could retrieve the value of the view model after model binding:
public class MyActionFilterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
var model = filterContext.ActionParameters["model"] as MyViewModel;
// do something with the model
// You could change some of its properties here
}
}
Now let's see the second part of your question. How to shortcircuit the controller action and redirect to another action?
This could be done by assigning a value to the Result property:
public class MyActionFilterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
... some processing here and you decide to redirect:
var routeValues = new RouteValueDictionary(new
{
controller = "somecontroller",
action = "someaction"
});
filterContext.Result = new RedirectToRouteResult(routeValues);
}
}
or for example you decide to shortcircuit the execution of the controller action and directly render a view:
public class MyActionFilterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
var viewResult = new ViewResult
{
ViewName = "~/Views/FooBar/Baz.cshtml",
};
MyViewModel someModel = ... get the model you want to pass to the view
viewResult.ViewData.Model = model;
filterContext.Result = viewResult;
}
}
or you might decide to render a JSON result:
public class MyActionFilterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
MyViewModel someModel = ... get the model you want to pass to the view
filterContext.Result = new JsonResult
{
Data = model,
JsonRequestBehavior = JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet
};
}
}
So as you can see the possibilities are unlimited of what you can do.
I have experimented with the code in the answer provided by the user Darin Dimitrov, and the first and third parts of the answer are correct.
(Though, for others who might find this thread and be interested, I can clarify that in the first answer the "model" does not seem to
be a hardcoded keyword always used for the model but seems to have to correspond to the chosen name of the action method parameter.
In other words, if you instead have the method signature
public ActionResult Index(MyViewModel myViewModel)
then in your action filter you have to use
var model = filterContext.ActionParameters["myViewModel"] as MyViewModel;
)
Regarding the second answer, the usage of 'RedirectToRouteResult' will trigger a new http request (which was not desired as I mentioned in the second code example of mine).
I found another way of "changing" action method by actually invoking it explicitly:
var controller = new SomeController();
ActionResult result = controller.SomeAction(model);
filterContext.Result = result;
The above code actually seems to prevent the originally targeted action method from becoming invoked, i.e. when I put a breakpoint in the method annotated with '[MyActionFilter]' the execution never got into that method.
Typically, it is probably not desired to hardcode a controller like above, but instead reflection might be used, for example as below with the thirdpart library "fasterflect":
string nameOfController = ...
string nameOfActionMethod = ...
// both above variables might for example be derived by using some naming convention and parsing the refering url, depending on what you want to do ...
var theController = this.GetType().Assembly.CreateInstance(nameOfController);
ActionResult result = (ActionResult)theController.CallMethod(nameOfActionMethod, model);
filterContext.Result = result;
(for those who want to extract the names of the current target controller and action method, when implementing logic to determine the controller you want to invoke, you can use this code in the filter:
var routeValueDictionary = filterContext.RouteData.Values;
string nameOfTargetedController = routeValueDictionary["controller"].ToString();
string nameOfTargetedActionMethod = routeValueDictionary["action"].ToString();
)
I think it feels a bit awkward to instantiate and invoke controllers like above, and would prefer to change the target controller and action method in another way if possible ?
So, the remaining question is if there is still (in MVC 4 final version) no way of redirecting/forwarding execution "internally" (without a new http request being fired as with 'RedirectToAction') at the server ?
Basically, I think I am here just looking for something like "Server.Transfer" which was used with ASP.NET Web Forms (and also the old classic ASP I believe could use the same thing).
I have seen older question/answers on this issue with people implementing this behaviour themselves with some "TransferResult" class of their own, but it seems to tend to become broken i different MVC versions.
(for example, see here for MVC 4 beta: How to redirect MVC action without returning 301? (using MVC 4 beta) ).
Is there really still not a simple standard solution (implemented in MVC 4 final) about how to do an "internal redirect" without a new http request (as RedirectToAction does) ?
I have a base class for my controllers. In the constructor of the base class I was trying to populate a ViewBag property from TempData. However it seems that TempData is not populated at that point, nor is it in the OnBeginExecute method.
I need to populate this ViewBag property in the base class, as all controllers need the same variable (it's a redirection message).
Which override of Controller in my base class can I use to do this?
TempData as well as any HttpContext related stuff is not available in the controller constructor. You can use them starting from the Initialize method. So if you need to populate them in a global manner for a controller either override this method or write a custom action filter and decorate your controller with it:
public class HomeController: Controller
{
protected override void Initialize(RequestContext requestContext)
{
base.Initialize(requestContext);
// now you can access the HttpContext
}
...
}
Take a look at BeginExecuteCore:
protected override IAsyncResult BeginExecuteCore(AsyncCallback callback, object state)
{
// TempData is not populated here
var result = base.BeginExecuteCore(callback, state);
// TempData is populated here
return result;
}
I am unit-testing my controller.
In one of my controller methods I am setting Session variables:
public void Index()
{ Session["foo"] = "bar";
return View();
}
How can I unit-test this? The problem is that the Session property is null when testing. Injecting is not possible because the Session property is readonly.
I don't want to use any third-party tool or mocking.
Simply dont use things like Session["foo"] in your controller methods. Best practice is keep action methods unaware of any context-like global objects. Everything your action method needs should be given to her in form of arguments. Note that built-in mechanism of model binding works exactly like that - you dont use Request.Form[], you let "somebody behind the scene" pass it to your action as argument.
Now for the session you can do the same - write you very simple ValueProvider which will know how to recognize arguments you want to fill from session, and you are done. In production your actions will work with session, in test you cant simply pass them any values you want as arguments.
For inspiration look at this http://www.prideparrot.com/blog/archive/2012/7/how_to_create_a_custom_session_value_provider
Injecting is not possible because the Session property is readonly.
This means you cannot use setter injection, but could you use constructor injection, ie add a constructor for your controller that is something like:
MyController(Session session)
{
m_session = session;
// then call your main constructor
}
Session getSession()
{
return m_session;
}
You can then use this separate constructor during testing.
I agree with #rouen. do not directly use Session["foo"]. But I think having ValueProvider ans might not be a practical solution, as we only store very few variables, and these values may be and most likely not ur full model.
So my approach is something similar to what Vic Smith suggests but a much more IOC (and Mock) friendly.
I would create a provider (i.e a service) to retrieve the session variables
public class SessionVariableProvider : ISessionVariableProvider
{
public object GetSessionValue(string key)
{
if (!HttpContext.Current.Session.IsNewSession
&& HttpContext.Current.Session[key] != null)
{
return HttpContext.Current.Session[key];
}
throw new ArgumentNullException(key);
}
public void SetSessionValue(string key, object value)
{
HttpContext.Current.Session[key] = value;
}
}
public interface ISessionVariableProvider
{
object GetSessionValue(string key);
void SetSessionValue(string key, object value);
}
Modify your Controller expect ISessionVariableProvider as a parameter.
public class TestController: Controller
{
protected readonly ISessionVariableProvider _sessionVariableProvider;
protected InowiaControllerBase(ISessionVariableProvider sessionVariableProvider)
{
Guard.ArgumentNotNull(sessionVariableProvider, "sessionVariableProvider");
this._sessionVariableProvider = sessionVariableProvider;
}
public ActionResult Index()
{
_sessionVariableProvider.SetSessionValue("foo", "bar");
var foo2 = (string)_sessionVariableProvider.GetSessionValue("foo2");
return View();
}
}
when testing create your own test implementation of ISessionVariableProvider and pass it to the controller.
I'm try to build a static property on a static class that will basically return a cookie value, to be used across my MVC site (MVC 3, if it matters). Something like this:
public static class SharedData
{
public static string SomeValue
{
get
{
if (HttpContext.Current.Request.Cookies["SomeValue"] == null)
{
CreateNewSomeValue();
}
return HttpContext.Current.Request.Cookies["SomeValue"].Value.ToString();
}
}
}
I need to access this from within controller actions, global.asax methods, and action filters. But the problem is, when action filters run, HttpContext is not available. Right now, I have to have a separate static method just to pull the cookie from the filter context that I pass in, which seems awkward.
What is the best solution for building such a static method for retrieving a cookie value like this that works from both controller actions and action filters? Or is there a better approach for doing something like this?
Thanks in advance.
The call to the static HttpContext.Current is not good design. Instead, create an extension method to access the cookie from an instance of HttpContext and HttpContextBase.
I wrote a little helper for you. You can use it to perform your functionality from within an action filter.
public static class CookieHelper
{
private const string SomeValue = "SomeValue";
public static string get_SomeValue(this HttpContextBase httpContext)
{
if(httpContext.Request.Cookies[SomeValue]==null)
{
string value = CreateNewSomeValue();
httpContext.set_SomeValue(value);
return value;
}
return httpContext.Request.Cookies[SomeValue].Value;
}
public static void set_SomeValue(this HttpContextBase httpContext, string value)
{
var someValueCookie = new HttpCookie(SomeValue, value);
if (httpContext.Request.Cookies.AllKeys.Contains(SR.session))
{
httpContext.Response.Cookies.Set(someValueCookie);
}
else
{
httpContext.Response.Cookies.Add(someValueCookie);
}
}
}
Note: You could easily make these methods work on HttpContext instead just by replacing the HttpContextBase parameter with HttpContext.
As JohnnyO pointed out above, I had access to HttpContext from within my action filter all along. At least, in the particular action filter method where this was needed. There may have been some other filter/method that did not have access at one point, but for now, this is working as I need it to.
I have a base controller class from which my other controllers are inherited
public abstract class BaseController : Controller
{
protected override void Initialize(System.Web.Routing.RequestContext requestContext)
{
base.Initialize(requestContext);
...
}
}
During initialization I'm doing some setup, and there are a few cases where I'd want to short circuit the execution, jumping directly to the return of the ActionResult, skipping the execution of the actual Action method entirely. Something along these lines
protected override void Initialize(System.Web.Routing.RequestContext requestContext)
{
base.Initialize(requestContext);
if(specialCase)
{
ViewData[...] = specialCaseInformation;
return View("~/Shared/SpecialCase.aspx");
}
}
The intention would be to skip whatever ActionResult method was going to be called and replace it with my global special case page. But I don't think Initialize was meant for this.
What I think I need to do is create a seperate ActionFilterAttribute class, override the OnActionExecuting method, and if the specialCase comes up, construct a ViewResult object and assign it to the filterContext.Result property.
Am I going in the right direction with this, or should I be doing this differently?
Yes, an ActionFilterAttribute is exactly the right way. Look at HandleErrorAttribute.cs for an example.
Initialize is not the right way, as you say.