Cannot debug EmbeddedResource views loaded via custom VirtualPathProvider

Question

I have written a custom VirtualPathProvider (source here) which will return content from EmbeddedResources, or from the original file if it has been told where to find it (this

Answer 1

I had the same problem and finally got it working by using a custom RazorHost. It seems that the physical file location is resolved using the HostingEnvironment.MapPath() method which does not return the correct result for embedded files.

What I did:

public class MyCustomRazorHostFactory : WebRazorHostFactory
{
    public override System.Web.WebPages.Razor.WebPageRazorHost CreateHost( string virtualPath, string physicalPath )
    {
        // Implementation stolen from MvcRazorHostFactory :)
        var host = base.CreateHost( virtualPath, physicalPath );

        if( !host.IsSpecialPage )
        {
            return new MyCustomRazorHost( virtualPath, physicalPath );
        }

        return host;
    }
}

public class MyCustomRazorHost : MvcWebPageRazorHost
{
    public MyCustomRazorHost( string virtualPath, string physicalPath )
        : base( virtualPath, physicalPath )
    {
        if( MyMagicHelper.IsEmbeddedFile( virtualPath ) )
        {
            PhysicalPath = MyMagicHelper.GetPhysicalFilePath(virtualPath);
        }
    }
}

// Simplified for demonstration purpose
public static class MyMagicHelper
{
    public static bool IsEmbeddedFile(string virtualPath)
    {
        // ... check if the path is an embedded file path
    }

    public static string GetPhysicalFilePath(string virtualPath)
    {
        // ... resolve the virtual file and return the correct physical file path
    }
}

As a last step you need to tell ASP.NET which host factory it should use. This is done in the web.config:

I know my answer comes a bit late but hopefully someone else can make use of it when stumbling across this question as I did. :)