ASP.NET MVC Bootstrapper

Thanks to a comment by thangchung in my last post about the global.asax, I’m going to write up a post using a bootstrapper in my global.cs. So what does that mean? Well basically it’s a technique to boot up your mvc app. Let’s get started!

Step 1: Create your task interface. Mine looks like this:

public interface IStartUpTask
{
    void Configure();
}

Pretty simple right? Let’s keep on…

Step 2: Configure StructureMap, otherwise you’re going to have a mess. In my Scan() from my DependencyRegistry, I added x.AddAllTypesOf<IStartUpTask>(); and the completed Scan looks like this:

  Scan(x =>
                     {
                         x.TheCallingAssembly();
                         x.AddAllTypesOf<IStartUpTask>();
                         x.WithDefaultConventions();
                     });

Step 3: Create the Bootstrapper class. Mine looks like this:

    public class Bootstrapper
    {
        static Bootstrapper()
        {
            DependencyResolution.DependencyRegistrar.EnsureDependenciesRegistered();
        }

        public static void StartUp()
        {
            var startUpTasks = ObjectFactory.GetAllInstances<IStartUpTask>();

            foreach (var task in startUpTasks)
                task.Configure();
        }
    }

The DependencyRegistrar mentioned above, I basically stole from the sample code in the ASP.NET MVC in Action book. I made a few modifications, but not much.

Step 4: Configure your configuration files for all the junk you need to start up.

• Routes - I took my RouteConfigurator and made it implement IStartUpTask and renamed RegisterRoutes to Configure.
  
• MvcContrib InputBuilder – Just made a new class that looks like this:

public class MvcContribConfigurer : IStartUpTask
    {
        public void Configure()
        {
            MvcContrib.UI.InputBuilder.InputBuilder.BootStrap();
        }
    }

• Automapper - I already had a configure, so I just tacked on the : IStartUpTask like this:

    public class AutoMapperConfigurator : IStartUpTask
    {
        public void Configure()
        {
            Mapper.Initialize(x => x.AddProfile<MyProfile>());
        }
    }

• ControllerFactory – I created a new class for it and it looks like this:

 public class ControllerConfigurer : IStartUpTask
    {
        public void Configure()
        {
            ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(new ControllerFactory());
        }
    }

That’s it! So essentially the Global.cs went from this:

protected void Application_Start()
        {
            MvcContrib.UI.InputBuilder.InputBuilder.BootStrap();
            DependencyRegistrar.EnsureDependenciesRegistered();
            new RouteConfigurator().RegisterRoutes(); 
            AutoMapperConfigurator.Configure();
            ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(new ControllerFactory());
        }

to this:

        protected void Application_Start()
        {
            Bootstrapper.StartUp();
        }

Pretty cool stuff! Thanks thangchung for bringing it up!

As always, please comment and thanks for reading!