Question

i have several controllers which will all be using common functionality. So i have separated that functionality into a separate controller.

the shared controller needs a parameter specific to which controller it is being used from, and needs to return views based on id ints passed to it.

So, one idea is to create an instance of SharedController(int callingControllerId) in the constructor of each of the controllers that will be using it. Then, within the action methods of each controller, call the action methods of the shared controller, passing appropriate ids, and returning views from SharedController to the calling controller, which would return the view to be rendered.

Does this sound right? Should controllers be creating other controllers in MVC?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Absolutely not although having your controller inherit from a shared, base controller is pretty common.

public KittyController : MySharedBaseController
{

}

Like Greg Roberts points out that although having a ControllerBase is common it is not always the best place to store shared functionality. MVC has a lot of extensibility points and picking a narrow place to wedge in your code is a lot better than smushing tons of things into a base controller.