Generating controllers in a ASP.NET Web API Self-Host application

Question

ASP.NET Web API project template in Visual Studio 2012 is a specialized MVC4 project and after creating an instance of such a project, right clicking on the "Controllers" folder shows you "Add >> Controller" menu item which triggers the controller generator. (scaffolding)

On the other hand, it is also possible to host an ASP.NET Web API server in a console application, which is called in the documentation a Self-Host application.

http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/hosting-aspnet-web-api/self-host-a-web-api

My question is: How can I use the "Controller Scaffolding" if I am developing a self hosting console application?

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:27:44Z

1

Scaffolding is still supported via the package manager console e.g. here.

But the MVC specific "Add Controller" dialog is indeed reserved for MVC project files.

You can however, force your self host project to include this dialog.

This can be achieved by adding a line into the project file to "trick" visual studio into thinking your self host app is a MVC app. See this question for details "Add Controller" / "Add View" in a hybrid MVC/WebForms ASP.NET application

If you:

Create a Controllers folder under your project root
Right mouse button your self host project file and "Unload Project"
Right mouse button your self host project file "Edit "
Under the Xml > Project -> PropertyGroup Add the node shown under the steps
Save

Right mouse button your self host project file click reload project

<ProjectTypeGuids> 
    {E3E379DF-F4C6-4180-9B81-6769533ABE47};{349c5851-65df-11da-9384-00065b846f21};{fae04ec0-301f-11d3-bf4b-00c04f79efbc}
</ProjectTypeGuids>

Once you have done this you can start playing around with TT files (scaffolds) to make them more useful/specific to self hosting http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ModifyingTheDefaultCodeGenerationscaffoldingTemplatesInASPNETMVC.aspx

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:27

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answered Nov 17, 2012 at 13:10

Mark Jones

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4 Comments

e-mre Over a year ago

This looks like a really cool solution. I did what you said (and copied template files into my project like Hanselman says in his blog post). Visual studio did some kind of an upgrade after reloading the project. That was expected I guess. Now I can open the "Add Controller" dialog but it gives an error when trying to generate. <<< Unable to retrieve metadata for 'DemoWebApiConsole.Company'. No connection string named 'EmployeeContext' could be found in the application config file. >>> Believe me, EmployeeContext does exist in app.config file.

Mark Jones Over a year ago

What kind of controller/ template are you trying to build from? ( standard EF one? Bit of a long shot but perhaps worth adding a dummy web.config to see if the templates are bent towards looking for web stuff not app.config.

e-mre Over a year ago

Somehow closing and restarting Visual Studio did the trick. Now it does see the Context but can not generate controller saying <<<Context type not supported>>> I am using a MySql database. I guess that is the problem. Anyways ... good solution. Thanks...

Mark Jones Over a year ago

Glad it helped, if not a complete fix. I just went through the steps myself including the EF scaffolding. It worked but I was creating a <New Data Context...>.

Mark Berryman · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-16 21:23:17Z

0

I don't think this is currently possible. This scaffolding support is specific to MVC 4 projects currently.

answered Nov 16, 2012 at 21:23

Mark Berryman

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