Question

Background:
In my MVC post back action methods I am receiving command objects rather than view models. The idea is that these command objects (which roughly equate to transaction scripts) will be set up and ready to execute upon entering the action method, with the model binder having set parameters which are used during the execution process:

public class MyCommand : IMyCommand
{
    // In this case Value1 and Value2 are being set by the default model binder from posted form values - wonderful :)
    public String Value1 { get; set; }
    public String Value2 { get; set; }

    public CommandResult ExecuteCommand()
    {
        // Does something awesome...
    }
}

To make things a little more complex, my command objects have dependencies (services, repositories etc) which are required in their respective constructors; so I had to create a custom model binder which used the default DependencyResolver (which was already set up with my IoC container) to construct the model objects:

public class DependencyModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
    protected override Object CreateModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, Type modelType)
    {
        return DependencyResolver.Current.GetService(modelType);
    }
}

And set up in Global.asax.cs like so:

ModelBinders.Binders.DefaultBinder = new DependencyModelBinder();

Again this all works fine, the dependencies are injected into the constructor and then the default model binder takes over to set the properties as usual.

The Issue:
The problem I have is that all of my command objects have a ‘SessionId’ GUID parameter (which comes from a cookie), and the first thing they do is try to resolve a session object from this id using an injected service.

public class MyCommand : IMyCommand
{
    public MyCommand (ISessionRepository sessionRepository) { ... }

    public Guid SessionId { get; set; } // Set by model binder from a cookie...

    public CommandResult Execute()
    {
        Session session = SessionRepository.Get(SessionId);

        if (session == null)
            // Do something not so awesome...
    }
}

I wanted to remove this repetition, so I created a second model binder which would take care of this lookup in the repository, meaning my command objects could have a Session property directly (removing the constructor dependency for the session repository).

public class SessionModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
    public override object BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
    {
        var sessionRepository = DependencyResolver.Current.GetService<ISessionRepository>();

        return sessionRepository.Get((Guid)controllerContext.HttpContext.Request["SessionId"]);
    }
}

My Global.asax.cs file now looking like so:

ModelBinders.Binders.DefaultBinder = new DependencyModelBinder();
ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(Session), new SessionModelBinder());

Having tested the SessionModelBinder in isolation, I know it works. However when using it in conjunction with the DependencyModelBinder, it is never called. How can I get MVC to use my DependencyModelBinder when constructing model objects, but have it use my SessionModelBinder when binding session properties on them? Or does anyone know a better approach to this?

Answer 1

You could use the GetPropertyValue method in your original model binder to provide a value for the Session property:

public class DependencyModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder
{
    protected override object CreateModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, Type modelType)
    {
        return DependencyResolver.Current.GetService(modelType);
    }

    protected override object GetPropertyValue(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor, IModelBinder propertyBinder)
    {
        if (propertyDescriptor.Name == "Session")
        {
            var sessionRepository = DependencyResolver.Current.GetService<ISessionRepository>();
            return sessionRepository.Get(controllerContext.HttpContext.Request["SessionId"]);
        }
        return base.GetPropertyValue(controllerContext, bindingContext, propertyDescriptor, propertyBinder);
    }
}