Nova: Controllers

Web Controllers

Controllers are created for each requests and destroyed after processing the request.

Registering controllers in your application This is very simple, although controllers are not registered automatically, there are a lot of configuration options available.

Creating controller contexts (click here to see live example): tl;dr:

class WebApplication : public IWebApplication
{
public:

    WebApplication(const ApplicationInitContext& context)
    : IWebApplication(context)
    { }

    void RegisterControllers()
    {
        auto& cf = GetContext().GetControllerFactory();

        cf.CreateContext<HomeController>("home", "/api")
            .RouteAction<&HomeController::Index>(Method::Get, "index")
            .RouteAction<&HomeController::Get>(Method::Get, "get", "[params]")
            .RouteAction<&HomeController::Login>(Method::Get, "login")
            .RouteAction<&HomeController::Logout>(Method::Get, "logout");
    }
};

Lifetime of controllers

On initialization controller registration must be done. This is required to prepare the controller metadata (e.g. actions, etc..).

When a request is made, routing system processes a url and gives us controller/action, which is used to find the requested controller context with a needed action, if controller context is found a new instance of Controller object is created and pre-/post-filters are executed, every controller gets destroyed after request processing.

Each controller contains the information about request itself, identity session and miscellaneous data. See here.

Example of controller class:

class HomeController : public Nova::IController
{
public:

    NOVA_CONTROLLER(HomeController);

    void Index()
    {
        bool isAuthenticated = GetUserManager().IsUserAuthenticated(Session);

        if (isAuthenticated)
        {
            ObjectResult result("Perhaps");

            Ok(&result);
        }
        else
        {
            ObjectResult result("No");

            NotAuthorized(&result);
        }
    }

    void Doges()
    {
        PhysicalFile("doges.html");
    }
};