Autofac - Inject properties into a asp.net mvc controller

Question

I have a base controller from which inherit all my controllers. This base controller has some properties I'd like to inject the using property injection.

My controller registration looks like this

builder.RegisterControllers(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()

I don't know how to access the base class and inject the properties.

Answer 1

This should work:

builder.RegisterControllers(typeof(MvcApplication).Assembly).PropertiesAutowired();

Some more info on the autofac website: http://code.google.com/p/autofac/wiki/PropertyInjection

Answer 2

You may want to consider using an Autofac Aggregate Service:

An aggregate service is useful when you need to treat a set of dependencies as one dependency. When a class depends on several constructor-injected services, or have several property-injected services, moving those services into a separate class yields a simpler API.

An example is super- and subclasses where the superclass have one or more constructor-injected dependencies. The subclasses must usually inherit these dependencies, even though they might only be useful to the superclass. With an aggregate service, the superclass constructor parameters can be collapsed into one parameter, reducing the repetitiveness in subclasses. Another important side effect is that subclasses are now insulated against changes in the superclass dependencies, introducing a new dependency in the superclass means only changing the aggregate service definition.

Answer 3

This works for me:

using Autofac;
using Autofac.Integration.Web;
using Autofac.Integration.Web.Mvc;    

builder.RegisterType<ExtensibleActionInvoker>().As<IActionInvoker>();
builder.RegisterControllers(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()).InjectActionInvoker();

Answer 4

nickvane's answer is correct. Just make sure

builder.RegisterControllers(typeof(MvcApplication).Assembly).PropertiesAutowired();

is after your all dependencies are registered. Or in other words, just right before you build your container.

So final code will look like

.
.
.
builder.RegisterControllers(typeof(MvcApplication).Assembly).PropertiesAutowired();           

var container = builder.Build();

Answer 5

Need to call also for MVC:

DependencyResolver.SetResolver(new AutofacDependencyResolver(container));

For Web API:

HttpConfiguration config = GlobalConfiguration.Configuration;
config.DependencyResolver = new AutofacWebApiDependencyResolver(container);