ASP.NET Web Forms Integration GuideΒΆ

ASP.NET Web Forms was never designed with dependency injection in mind. Although using constructor injection in our Page classes, user controls and HTTP handlers would be preferable, it is unfortunately not possible, because ASP.NET expects those types to have a default constructor.

Instead of doing constructor injection, there are alternatives. The simplest thing to do is to fall back to property injection and initialize the page in the constructor.

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Compilation;
using System.Web.UI;
using Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.DynamicModuleHelper;

// Use the SimpleInjector.Integration.Web Nuget package
using SimpleInjector;
using SimpleInjector.Advanced;
using SimpleInjector.Diagnostics;
using SimpleInjector.Integration.Web;

// Makes use of the System.ComponentModel.Composition assembly
using System.ComponentModel.Composition;

[assembly: PreApplicationStartMethod(
    typeof(MyWebApplication.PageInitializerModule),
    "Initialize")]

namespace MyWebApplication
{
    public sealed class PageInitializerModule : IHttpModule
    {
        public static void Initialize()
        {
            DynamicModuleUtility.RegisterModule(typeof(PageInitializerModule));
        }

        void IHttpModule.Init(HttpApplication app)
        {
            app.PreRequestHandlerExecute += (sender, e) =>
            {
                var handler = app.Context.CurrentHandler;
                if (handler != null)
                {
                    string name = handler.GetType().Assembly.FullName;
                    if (!name.StartsWith("System.Web") &&
                        !name.StartsWith("Microsoft"))
                    {
                        Global.InitializeHandler(handler);
                    }
                }
            };
        }

        void IHttpModule.Dispose() { }
    }

    public class Global : HttpApplication
    {
        private static Container container;

        public static void InitializeHandler(IHttpHandler handler)
        {
            Type handlerType = handler is Page
                ? handler.GetType().BaseType
                : handler.GetType();
            container.GetRegistration(handlerType, true).Registration
                .InitializeInstance(handler);
        }

        protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Bootstrap();
        }

        private static void Bootstrap()
        {
            // 1. Create a new Simple Injector container.
            var container = new Container();

            container.Options.DefaultScopedLifestyle = new WebRequestLifestyle();

            // Register a custom PropertySelectionBehavior to enable property injection.
            container.Options.PropertySelectionBehavior =
                new ImportAttributePropertySelectionBehavior();

            // 2. Configure the container (register)
            container.Register<IUserRepository, SqlUserRepository>();
            container.Register<IUserContext, AspNetUserContext>(Lifestyle.Scoped);

            // Register your Page classes to allow them to be verified and diagnosed.
            RegisterWebPages(container);

            // 3. Store the container for use by Page classes.
            Global.container = container;

            // 3. Verify the container's configuration.
            container.Verify();
        }

        private static void RegisterWebPages(Container container)
        {
            var pageTypes =
                from assembly in BuildManager.GetReferencedAssemblies().Cast<Assembly>()
                where !assembly.IsDynamic
                where !assembly.GlobalAssemblyCache
                from type in assembly.GetExportedTypes()
                where type.IsSubclassOf(typeof(Page))
                where !type.IsAbstract && !type.IsGenericType
                select type;

            foreach (Type type in pageTypes)
            {
                var reg = Lifestyle.Transient.CreateRegistration(type, container);
                reg.SuppressDiagnosticWarning(
                    DiagnosticType.DisposableTransientComponent,
                    "ASP.NET creates and disposes page classes for us.");
                container.AddRegistration(type, reg);
            }
        }

        class ImportAttributePropertySelectionBehavior : IPropertySelectionBehavior
        {
            public bool SelectProperty(Type implementationType, PropertyInfo property) {
                // Makes use of the System.ComponentModel.Composition assembly
                return typeof(Page).IsAssignableFrom(implementationType) &&
                    property.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(ImportAttribute), true).Any();
            }
        }
    }
}

With this code in place, we can now write our page classes as follows:

using System;
using System.ComponentModel.Composition;

public partial class Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
    [Import] public IUserRepository UserRepository { get; set; }
    [Import] public IUserContext UserContext { get; set; }

    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (this.UserContext.IsAdministrator)
        {
            this.UserRepository.DoSomeStuff();
        }
    }
}