Project Windsor - Repository Extending DataContext

Question

Before I begin I will say this: I have to extend DataContext in my repository because I'm calling stored procedures and ExecuteMethodCall is only available internally. Many people don't seem to know this, so please don't say "just don't extend DataContext".

I've just started using Windsor as my IoC container. My controller happily does the following:

public ContractsControlController(IContractsControlRepository contractsControlService)
{
    _contractsControlRepository = contractsControlService;
}

But my repository must have this constructor:

public ContractsControlRepository()
  : base(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["AccountsConnectionString"].ToString()) { }

But the IoC container is there to let you specify connection strings for your repository in the web.config. What must my constructor in the repository look like in order to do this? If I don't specify the one I've shown then it complains that there are no constructors that take zero arguments.

Cheers

EDIT

In global.asax.cs

ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(new WindsorControllerFactory());

WindsorControllerFactory.cs (in the root)

public class WindsorControllerFactory : DefaultControllerFactory
{
  WindsorContainer container;

  public WindsorControllerFactory()
  {
    container = new WindsorContainer(new XmlInterpreter(new ConfigResource("castle")));

    var controllerTypes = from t in Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetTypes() where typeof(IController).IsAssignableFrom(t) select t;

    foreach (Type t in controllerTypes)
    {
      container.AddComponentLifeStyle(t.FullName, t, LifestyleType.Transient);
    }
  }

  protected IController GetControllerInstance(Type controllerType)
  {
    return (IController)container.Resolve(controllerType);
  }
}

But the container isn't needed if nothing is going in web.config?

Answer 1

Look at this question to see how to provide parameter constructors.

Answer 2

David Kemp's suggestion is terse, but not type-safe. A more complex, but type-safe approach, would be using a factory method.

Imagine that the ContractsControlRepository class has been changed to take a connection string in its constructor. When that is the case, you can write something like this:

var connectionString = 
    ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings
        ["AccountsConnectionString"].ConnectionString;

var container = new WindsorContainer();
container.AddFacility<FactorySupportFacility>();
container.Register(Component
    .For<IContractsControlRepository>()
    .UsingFactoryMethod(k => new ContractsControlRepository(connectionString)));

Note that it is necessary to add the FactorySupportFacility to the container before the UsingFactoryMethod method will work.

Answer 3

It works like this: you configure your repository as any other component, but you also provide the required connection string as a parameter in your configuration.

<component id="MyDataContext" service="yourservice" type="yourtype" lifestyle="singleton">
  <parameters>
    <connectionString>Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=YourCatalog;Integrated Security=SSPI</connectionString>
  </parameters>
</component>

Then, you add a parameter to the constructor of your own DataContext, the name of which is connectionString.