Question

Given I have access only to ControllerContext and not Action____Contexts what is the optimal way to get the current executing ActionDescriptor?

So far the only method I’ve found is:

new ReflectedControllerDescriptor(context.Controller.GetType())
    .FindAction(context, context.RouteData.GetRequiredString("action"));

Is this the optimal method?

The fact that class is named ReflectedControllerDescriptor leads me to wonder if there is a heavy cost to this operation as it will be executed on every page request? Related to that is does this class internally cache or should I actually be caching ReflectedControllerDescriptors explicitly?

Answer 1

Doing some digging into the MVC source that’s pretty much the most optimal way without copying all the methods required to do what you’re already doing. However, I don’t see why you couldn’t cache found actions so that subsequent calls are more performant.

Internally ReflectedControllerDescriptor also caches the results though there seems to be a bit of overhead since it checks all attributes each time. It looks to be for stuff like HttpPostAttribute and what not.

My suggestion would be to stick with what you’re using rather than cache it yourself. If, for some reason, the way the underlying method works changes you’re up to date already and wont’ have to worry about changing the way you store cached items.