How can I enrich object composition in StructureMap without invoking setter injection?

Question

I'm trying to build an implementation of the IHttpControllerActivator interface for with with StructureMap, so that I can resolve a dependency of a controller which takes a dependency on the HttpRequestMessage being processed in the MVC Web API pipeline.

My implementation of Create is as follows:

public IHttpController Create(
    HttpRequestMessage request,
    HttpControllerDescriptor controllerDescriptor,
    Type controllerType)
{
    return (IHttpController)this.Container
        .With(request)
        .With(controllerDescriptor)
        .GetInstance(controllerType);
}

The Container property is a reference to the StructureMap IContainer instance passed to the activator when it is constructed.

My registration for the controllers uses reflection to obtain all the ApiController implementations:

foreach(var controller in this.GetType().Assembly.GetTypes()
    .Where(type => typeof(ApiController).IsAssignableFrom(type)))
{
   this.For(controller).Use(controller);
}

Using the debugger, I checked that initialises the controller instances and passes in their dependencies. However, when the ExecuteAsync method is called on the controller, an exception is thrown:

Cannot reuse an 'ApiController' instance. 'ApiController' has to be constructed per incoming message. Check your custom 'IHttpControllerActivator' and make sure that it will not manufacture the same instance.

After some digging and experimentation I discovered this is due to a check performed at the start of ExecuteAsync which checks the Request property of the ApiController to see if it has been assigned a value. If the property has a non-null value, it infers that the controller has already been used to process a request and aborts the operation.

Further to this, I verified that StructureMap attempted to use its setter-injection behaviour when composing the controller and is responsible for Request having a non-null value.

In my registry, I haven't configured any setter-injection, so I'm confused as to why it's being invoked here. A poke around the StructureMap API hasn't yielded any obvious answers as to how I could change the behaviour exhibited.

Am I invoking StructureMap incorrectly? Is there a configuration setting I can leverage to say "never ever assign a property value"?

Davina

Could you post the code how you register controller in StructureMap – Noon

I have added the registration code as requested - it's not especially elaborate. – Davina

Answer 1

I think your issue revolves around the way that you are setting up your controllers with StructureMap. In order to get this working correctly, the best way is to hook into the WebAPI stack's dependency injection stack by creating your own implementation of IDependencyResolver. There's a pretty good example of this at http://craigsdevspace.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/using-structuremap-with-web-api/

The basic code, though, might look something like:

IDependencyResolver:

public class _DependencyResolver : _DependencyScope, IDependencyResolver {

    public _DependencyResolver(IContainer container) : base(container) { }

    public IDependencyScope BeginScope() {
        return new _DependencyScope(_container);
    }
}

IDependencyScope:

public class _DependencyScope : ServiceLocatorImplBase, IDependencyScope {
    protected readonly IContainer _container;

    public _DependencyScope(IContainer container) {
        if (container == null)
            throw new ArgumentNullException("container");

        _container = container;
    }

    public override object GetService(Type serviceType) {
        if (serviceType == null)
            return null;

        try {
            return (serviceType.IsAbstract || serviceType.IsInterface)
                ? _container.TryGetInstance(serviceType)
                : _container.GetInstance(serviceType);
        } catch {
            return null;
        }
    }

    protected override object DoGetInstance(Type serviceType, string key) {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(key))
            return _container.TryGetInstance(serviceType);

        return _container.TryGetInstance(serviceType, key);
    }

    protected override IEnumerable<object> DoGetAllInstances(Type serviceType) {
        return _container.GetAllInstances<object>().Where(s => s.GetType() == serviceType);
    }

    public IEnumerable<object> GetServices(Type serviceType) {
        return _container.GetAllInstances<object>().Where(s => s.GetType() == serviceType);
    }

    public void Dispose() {
        //_container.Dispose();
    }

}

To hook these classes up to WebAPI, then, you would add the following to Global.asax:

GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.DependencyResolver = 
    new _DependencyResolver(ObjectFactory.Container);

And either in Global.asax or in your Bootstrapper, you would add the following:

ObjectFactory.Initialize(x => {
    x.Scan(scanner => scanner.AddAllTypesOf<ApiController>());
});

This sets up your StructureMap implementation to use the stack's pre-existing injection structure - which should avoid the problem that you're having.

Morton

You seem to have missed the part where I take a dependency on HttpRequestMessage, which is only available for composition via the IHttpControllerActivator interface. The question is how to enrich StructureMap's object composition to include the transient request message, without invoking setter injection. – Davina