ASP.NET MVC event that happens just before action is called?

Question

I want to set the value of Thread.CurrentCulture based on some route data, but I can\'t find an event to hook to that fires after the routes are calculated and befo

Answer 1

If you want to apply the culture on every action, you could create a base controller and override the OnActionExecuting method.

Answer 2

You could write a custom action filter attribute:

public class CustomFilterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
    public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
    {
        // This method is executed before calling the action
        // and here you have access to the route data:
        var foo = filterContext.RouteData.Values["foo"];
        // TODO: use the foo route value to perform some action

        base.OnActionExecuting(filterContext);
    }
}

And then you could decorate your base controller with this custom attribute. And here's a blog post illustrating a sample implementation of such filter.

Answer 3

If you want to add the filter to all controllers, not just select ones, you can add it to the "global filters". You do this in Application_Start() in your Global.asax.cs file:

protected void Application_Start()
{
    AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();

    // Register global filter
    GlobalFilters.Filters.Add(new CustomFilterAttribute ()); // ADDED

    RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);
    RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
}