The ASP.NET MVC
Framework
Sarang Datye
sarang.datye@microsoft.com
http://www.dotnetbetaworks.com

ASP.NET MVC is…
A new Web Project Type for
ASP.NET.
An option.
More control over your <html/>
A more easily Testable
Framework.
Not for everyone.

What’s the Point?
This is not Web Forms 4.0
It’s about alternatives. Car vs. Motorcycle.
Flexible
Extend it. Or not.
Fundamental
Part of System.Web and isn’t going anywhere.
Plays Well With Others
Feel free to use NHibernate for Models, Brail
for Views and Whatever for Controllers.
Keep it simple and DRY

Goodness – Driving Goals
Maintain Clean Separation of Concerns
Easy Testing
Red/Green TDD
Highly maintainable applications by default
Extensible and Pluggable
Support replacing any component of the
system

Goodness – Driving Goals
Enable clean URLs and HTML
SEO and REST friendly URL structures
Great integration within ASP.NET
All the same providers still work
Membership, Session, Caching, etc.
ASP.NET Designer Surface in VS2008

MVC
Model
View Controller

A Little More Detail
•Browser requests /Products/
Model •Route is determined
•Controller is activated
•Method on Controller is invoke
•Controller does some stuff
•Renders View, passing in
custom ViewData
•URLs are rendered,
pointing to other
Controller
View Controllers

Even More Detail – Request Flow
• You can futz at each step
Request
in the process
HTTP Http
Controller Response
Routing Handler
Route View
Route View
Handler Engine

Extensibility
Views
Controllers
Models
Routes
…are all Pluggable

Demo – Complete Application
It’s your thing.
Do what you wanna do.

What’s the Point?
This is not Web Forms 4.0
It’s about alternatives. Car vs. Motorcycle.
Flexible
Extend it. Or not.
Fundamental
Part of System.Web and isn’t going anywhere.
Plays Well With Others
Feel free to use NHibernate for Models, Brail
for Views and Whatever for Controllers.
Keep it simple and DRY

URL Routing – Pretty URIs
Developers adds Routes to a global RouteTable
Mapping creates a RouteData - a bag of key/values
RouteTable.Routes.Add(
new Route(\"blog/bydate/{year}/{month}/{day}\",
new MvcRouteHandler()){
Defaults = new RouteValueDictionary {
{\"controller\", \"blog\"}, {\"action\", \"show\"}
},
Constraints = new RouteValueDictionary {
{\"year\", @\"\\d{1.4}\"},
{\"month\", @\"\\d{1.2}\"},
{\"day\", @\"\\d{1.2}\"}}
})

Testing Controller Actions
No requirement to test within ASP.NET runtime.
Use RhinoMocks or TypeMock
Create Test versions of the parts of the runtime you
want to stub
[TestMethod]
public void ShowPostsDisplayPostView() {
TestPostRepository repository = new TestPostRepository();
TestViewEngine viewEngine = new TestViewEngine();
BlogController controller = new BlogController(…);
controller.ShowPost(2);
Assert.AreEqual(\"showpost\",viewEngine.LastRequestedView);
Assert.IsTrue(repository.GetPostByIdWasCalled);
Assert.AreEqual(2, repository.LastRequestedPostId);
}

Controller
Base Controller Class
Basic Functionality most folks will use
IController Interface
Ultimate Control for the Control Freak
IControllerFactory
For plugging in your own stuff (IOC, etc)

Basic Controller Handling
Scenarios, Goals and Design
URLs route to controller “actions”, not pages –
mark actions in Controller.
Controller executes logic, chooses view.
All public methods are accessible
public void ShowPost(int id) {
Post p = PostRepository.GetPostById(id);
if (p != null) {
RenderView(\"showpost\", p);
} else {
RenderView(\"nosuchpost\", id);
}
}

Controller Base Class
public class Controller : IController {
…
protected virtual void Execute(ControllerContext
controllerContext);
protected virtual void HandleUnknownAction(string actionName);
protected virtual bool InvokeAction(string actionName);
protected virtual void InvokeActionMethod(MethodInfo methodInfo);
protected virtual bool OnError(string actionName,
MethodInfo methodInfo, Exception exception);
protected virtual void OnActionExecuted(FilterExecutedContext
filterContext);
protected virtual bool OnActionExecuting(FilterExecutedContext
filterContext);
protected virtual void RedirectToAction(object values);
protected virtual void RenderView(string viewName,
string masterName, object viewData);
}

Controller – Regular APIs
public class Controller : IController {
…
protected virtual void Execute(ControllerContext
controllerContext);
protected virtual void HandleUnknownAction(string actionName);
protected virtual bool InvokeAction(string actionName);
protected virtual void InvokeActionMethod(MethodInfo methodInfo);
protected virtual bool OnError(string actionName,
MethodInfo methodInfo, Exception exception);
protected virtual void OnActionExecuted(FilterExecutedContext
filterContext);
protected virtual bool OnActionExecuting(FilterExecutedContext
filterContext);
protected virtual void RedirectToAction(object values);
protected virtual void RenderView(string viewName,
string masterName, object viewData);
}

Controller – Customization APIs
public class Controller : IController {
…
protected virtual void Execute(ControllerContext
controllerContext);
protected virtual void HandleUnknownAction(string actionName);
protected virtual bool InvokeAction(string actionName);
protected virtual void InvokeActionMethod(MethodInfo methodInfo);
protected virtual bool OnError(string actionName,
MethodInfo methodInfo, Exception exception);
protected virtual void OnActionExecuted(FilterExecutedContext
filterContext);
protected virtual bool OnActionExecuting(FilterExecutedContext
filterContext);
protected virtual void RedirectToAction(object values);
protected virtual void RenderView(string viewName,
string masterName, object viewData);
}

Controller – Test Hooks
public class Controller : IController {
…
protected virtual void Execute(ControllerContext
controllerContext);
protected virtual void HandleUnknownAction(string actionName);
protected virtual bool InvokeAction(string actionName);
protected virtual void InvokeActionMethod(MethodInfo methodInfo);
protected virtual bool OnError(string actionName,
MethodInfo methodInfo, Exception exception);
protected virtual void OnActionExecuted(FilterExecutedContext
filterContext);
protected virtual bool OnActionExecuting(FilterExecutedContext
filterContext);
protected virtual void RedirectToAction(object values);
protected virtual void RenderView(string viewName,
string masterName, object viewData);
}

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