How to use Dependency Injection with ASP.NET Web Forms

Question

I am trying to work out a way to use dependency injection with ASP.NET Web Forms controls.

I have got lots of controls that create repositories directly, and use those to access and bind to data etc.

I am looking for a pattern where I can pass repositories to the controls externally (IoC), so my controls remain unaware of how repositories are constructed and where they come from etc.

I would prefer not to have a dependency on the IoC container from my controls, therefore I just want to be able to construct the controls with constructor or property injection.

(And just to complicate things, these controls are being constructed and placed on the page by a CMS at runtime!)

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

UPDATE 2019: With the introduction of Web Forms 4.7.2, there is now better support for DI. This invalidates the below. See: Wiring up Simple Injector in WebForms in .NET 4.7.2

You can use automatic constructor injection by replacing the default PageHandlerFactory with a custom one. This way you can use an overloaded constructor to load the dependencies. Your page might look like this:

public partial class HomePage : System.Web.UI.Page
{
    private readonly IDependency dependency;

    public HomePage(IDependency dependency)
    {
        this.dependency = dependency;
    }

    // Do note this protected ctor. You need it for this to work.
    protected HomePage () { }
}

Configuring that custom PageHandlerFactory can be done in the web.config as follows:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
  <system.web>
    <httpHandlers>
      <add verb="*" path="*.aspx"
        type="YourApp.CustomPageHandlerFactory, YourApp"/>
    </httpHandlers>
  </system.web>
</configuration>

Your CustomPageHandlerFactory can look like this:

public class CustomPageHandlerFactory : PageHandlerFactory
{
    private static object GetInstance(Type type)
    {
        // TODO: Get instance using your favorite DI library.
        // for instance using the Common Service Locator:
        return Microsoft.Practices.ServiceLocation
            .ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance(type);
    }

    public override IHttpHandler GetHandler(HttpContext cxt, 
        string type, string vPath, string path)
    {
        var page = base.GetHandler(cxt, type, vPath, path);

        if (page != null)
        {
            // Magic happens here ;-)
            InjectDependencies(page);
        }

        return page;
    }

    private static void InjectDependencies(object page)
    {
        Type pageType = page.GetType().BaseType;

        var ctor = GetInjectableCtor(pageType);

        if (ctor != null)
        {
            object[] arguments = (
                from parameter in ctor.GetParameters()
                select GetInstance(parameter.ParameterType)
                .ToArray();

            ctor.Invoke(page, arguments);
        }
    }

    private static ConstructorInfo GetInjectableCtor(
        Type type)
    {
        var overloadedPublicConstructors = (
            from constructor in type.GetConstructors()
            where constructor.GetParameters().Length > 0
            select constructor).ToArray();

        if (overloadedPublicConstructors.Length == 0)
        {
            return null;
        }

        if (overloadedPublicConstructors.Length == 1)
        {
            return overloadedPublicConstructors[0];
        }

        throw new Exception(string.Format(
            "The type {0} has multiple public " +
            "ctors and can't be initialized.", type));
    }
}

Downside is that this only works when running your side in Full Trust. You can read more about it here. But do note that developing ASP.NET applications in partial trust seems a lost cause.