Get an Asp.net Web API controller context or action context in an HttpModule

Question

I have an HttpModule that is doing some processing on a request before the web api controller's action is executed. I'd like to be able to identify what controller/action will be executed by the request so I can examine some attributes that may be set on the controller/action ahead-of-time. How do I discover the controller/action that a particular requst URI will invoke?

In the HttpModule, obviously I can get the RouteData from the RouteTable -- how do I use this to find out the type (or preferably methodinfo, or at least method name) of the controller & action that will be invoked?

tugberk · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-02 12:39:58Z

1

An HttpModule is not a place where you should do such stuff. An HttpModule will be executed for every request regardless whether the request will go into the ASP.NET Web API pipeline or not.

What you need here is a Message Handler which will serve as smilar as an HttpModule for ASP.NET Web API requests.

answered Sep 2, 2012 at 12:39

tugberk

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Jordan0Day Over a year ago

Yeah, the more I research this, the more it looks like this is the route I have to take, if I want to use any contextual information from the controller/action description. I was hoping to do as much as possible in the httpmodule level, to short-circuit any calls into the WebAPI-based stuff if they weren't needed (that is, is the caller wasn't authenticated).

EBarr · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-31 19:24:22Z

1

Here is a sample illustrating how to get an ActionDescriptor and ControllerDescriptor from RouteData:

    var routeData = RouteTable.Routes.GetRouteData(requestContext.HttpContext); 
    if (routeData == null) 
        return false; 
    var controllerName = (string)routeData.Values["controller"]; 
    var actionName = (string) routeData.Values["action"]; 
    var controller = ControllerBuilder.Current.GetControllerFactory().CreateController(requestContext, controllerName); 
    if (controller == null) 
        return false; 
    var controllerType = controller.GetType(); 
    var controllerDescriptor = new ReflectedControllerDescriptor(controllerType); 
    var actionDescriptors = controllerDescriptor.GetCanonicalActions();

edited Aug 31, 2012 at 19:24

EBarr

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answered Aug 31, 2012 at 17:53

Kirill Bestemyanov

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4 Comments

Jordan0Day Over a year ago

Does ControllerBuilder have an analog in Web API?

Kirill Bestemyanov Over a year ago

ApiController is Controller afaik.

Jordan0Day Over a year ago

Yes, I mean the "ControllerBuilder" type -- it seems to be in System.Web.Mvc, but I don't see anything like that in System.Web.Http.

tugberk Over a year ago

this is completely wrong. ASP.NET Web API has nothing to do with ASP.NET MVC (in other words, System.Web.Mvc).

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