Should controllers in an ASP.NET MVC web app call repositories, services, or both?

Question

The controllers in my ASP.NET MVC web app are starting to get a bit bloated with business logic. The examples on the web all show simple controller actions that simply pull dat

Answer 1

Your controllers (in the MVC project) should be calling your objects in the Service project. The services project is where all the business logic is handled.

A good example is this:

public ActionResult Index()
{
    ProductServices productServices = new ProductServices();

    // top 10 products, for example.
    IList productList = productServices.GetProducts(10); 

    // Set this data into the custom viewdata.
    ViewData.Model = new ProductViewData
                         {
                             ProductList = productList;
                         };

    return View();
}  

or with Dependency Injection (my fav)

// Field with the reference to all product services (aka. business logic)
private readonly ProductServices _productServices;

// 'Greedy' constructor, which Dependency Injection auto finds and therefore
// will use.
public ProductController(ProductServices productServices)
{
    _productServices = productServices;
}

public ActionResult Index()
{
    // top 10 products, for example.
    // NOTE: The services instance was automagically created by the DI
    //       so i din't have to worry about it NOT being instansiated.
    IList productList = _productServices.GetProducts(10); 

    // Set this data into the custom viewdata.
    ViewData.Model = new ProductViewData
                         {
                             ProductList = productList;
                         };

    return View();
}

Now .. what's the Service project (or what is ProductServices)? that's a class library with your business logic. For example.

public class ProductServices : IProductServices
{
    private readonly ProductRepository _productRepository;
    public ProductServices(ProductRepository productRepository)
    {
        _productRepository = productRepository;
    }

    public IList GetProducts(int numberOfProducts)
    {
        // GetProducts() and OrderByMostRecent() are custom linq helpers...
        return _productRepository.GetProducts()
            .OrderByMostRecent()
            .Take(numberOfProducts)
            .ToList();
    }
}

but that might be all so hardcore and confusing... so a simple version of the ServiceProduct class could be (but i wouldn't really recommend) ...

public class ProductServices
{
    public IList GetProducts(int numberOfProducts)
    {
        using (DB db = new Linq2SqlDb() )
        {
            return (from p in db.Products
                    orderby p.DateCreated ascending
                    select p).Take(10).ToList();
        }
    }
}

So there you go. You can see that all the logic is in the Service projects, which means u can reuse that code in other places.

Where did i learn this?

From Rob Conery's MVC StoreFront media and tutorials. Best thing since sliced bread. His tutorials explain (what i did) in good detail with full solution code examples. He uses Dependency Injection which is SOO kewl now that i've seen how he uses it, in MVC.

HTH.