Dependency injection for ASP.NET Web API action method parameters

Question

I am working on an ASP.NET Web API project in C# for a JSON interface to a mobile application. My idea was to create interfaces for all requests and then only use these interfac

Answer 1

This is what I came up with now and it works.

I decided to create a custom formatter which does the unity calls and forwards all further operations to another formatter using the resolved type. It looks like a lot of code, but that is only because all the methods need to be overwritten so the type can always be resolved.

public class UnityFormatter : MediaTypeFormatter
{
    private MediaTypeFormatter formatter;

    private IUnityContainer container;

    public UnityFormatter(MediaTypeFormatter formatter, IUnityContainer container)
    {
        this.formatter = formatter;
        this.container = container;

        foreach (var supportedMediaType in this.formatter.SupportedMediaTypes)
        {
            this.SupportedMediaTypes.Add(supportedMediaType);
        }

        foreach (var supportedEncoding in this.formatter.SupportedEncodings)
        {
            this.SupportedEncodings.Add(supportedEncoding);
        }

        foreach (var mediaTypeMapping in this.MediaTypeMappings)
        {
            this.MediaTypeMappings.Add(mediaTypeMapping);
        }

        this.RequiredMemberSelector = this.formatter.RequiredMemberSelector;
    }

    private Type ResolveType(Type type)
    {
        return this.container.Registrations.Where(n => n.RegisteredType == type).Select(n => n.MappedToType).FirstOrDefault() ?? type;
    }

    public override bool CanReadType(Type type)
    {
        return this.formatter.CanReadType(this.ResolveType(type));
    }

    public override bool CanWriteType(Type type)
    {
        return this.formatter.CanWriteType(this.ResolveType(type));
    }

    public override MediaTypeFormatter GetPerRequestFormatterInstance(Type type, HttpRequestMessage request, MediaTypeHeaderValue mediaType)
    {
        return this.formatter.GetPerRequestFormatterInstance(this.ResolveType(type), request, mediaType);
    }

    public override Task<object> ReadFromStreamAsync(Type type, Stream readStream, HttpContent content, IFormatterLogger formatterLogger)
    {
        return this.formatter.ReadFromStreamAsync(this.ResolveType(type), readStream, content, formatterLogger);
    }

    public override void SetDefaultContentHeaders(Type type, HttpContentHeaders headers, MediaTypeHeaderValue mediaType)
    {
        this.formatter.SetDefaultContentHeaders(this.ResolveType(type), headers, mediaType);
    }

    public override Task WriteToStreamAsync(Type type, object value, Stream writeStream, HttpContent content, TransportContext transportContext)
    {
        return this.formatter.WriteToStreamAsync(this.ResolveType(type), value, writeStream, content, transportContext);
    }
}

Finally, register our custom formatter in the application config (Global.asax Application_Start). I chose to replace all current formatters with an instance of my custom one, so I get reflection for all data types.

// set up unity container, register all types
UnityContainer container = new UnityContainer();
container.RegisterType<IApiRegistrationRequest, ApiRegistrationRequest>();

// save existing formatters and remove them from the config
List<MediaTypeFormatter> formatters = new List<MediaTypeFormatter>(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters);
GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Clear();

// create an instance of our custom formatter for each existing formatter
foreach (MediaTypeFormatter formatter in formatters)
{
    GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Add(new UnityFormatter(formatter, container));
}

Answer 2

I Suggest you Have a look at Service Stack http://www.servicestack.net/

Its got the same all around design as asp.net-WebApi but it has goodies like IOC baked into it.

There is a amazing series on service stack at http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/service-stack