Beginning ASP.NET MVC 4. José Rolando Guay Paz

Transcription

1 Beginning ASP.NET MVC 4 José Rolando Guay Paz

2 Beginning ASP.NET MVC 4 Copyright 2013 by José Rolando Guay Paz This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law. ISBN-13 (pbk): ISBN-13 (electronic): Trademarked names, logos, and images may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, logo, or image we use the names, logos, and images only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. President and Publisher: Paul Manning Lead Editor: Ewan Buckingham Technical Reviewer: Andy Olsen Editorial Board: Steve Anglin, Mark Beckner, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell, Louise Corrigan, Morgan Ertel, Jonathan Gennick, Jonathan Hassell, Robert Hutchinson, Michelle Lowman, James Markham, Matthew Moodie, Jeff Olson, Jeffrey Pepper, Douglas Pundick, Ben Renow-Clarke, Dominic Shakeshaft, Gwenan Spearing, Matt Wade, Tom Welsh Coordinating Editor: Anamika Panchoo Copy Editor: William McManus Compositor: SPi Global Indexer: SPi Global Artist: SPi Global Cover Designer: Anna Ishchenko Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer Science+Business Media New York, 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY Phone SPRINGER, fax (201) , orders-ny@springer-sbm.com, or visit Apress Media, LLC is a California LLC and the sole member (owner) is Springer Science + Business Media Finance Inc (SSBM Finance Inc). SSBM Finance Inc is a Delaware corporation. For information on translations, please rights@apress.com, or visit Apress and friends of ED books may be purchased in bulk for academic, corporate, or promotional use. ebook versions and licenses are also available for most titles. For more information, reference our Special Bulk Sales ebook Licensing web page at Any source code or other supplementary materials referenced by the author in this text is available to readers at For detailed information about how to locate your book s source code, go to

3 To Jesus Christ, my Lord. To my wife Karina and my wonderful daughters Sara and Samantha. I love you. To my brother Juan Manuel (RIP). I miss you so much!

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5 Contents at a Glance About the Author...xiii About the Technical Reviewer... xv Acknowledgments... xvii Introduction... xix Chapter 1: Introducing ASP.NET MVC Chapter 2: Installing ASP.NET MVC Chapter 3: The Have You Seen Me? ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Application...25 Chapter 4: Controllers...39 Chapter 5: Views...47 Chapter 6: Models...69 Chapter 7: Data Validation...95 Chapter 8: Ajax and jquery Chapter 9: Security Chapter 10: Routing Chapter 11: Testing the Application Chapter 12: Deploying the Application Index v

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7 Contents About the Author...xiii About the Technical Reviewer... xv Acknowledgments... xvii Introduction... xix Chapter 1: Introducing ASP.NET MVC What Is ASP.NET?...1 ASP.NET Web Forms...3 ASP.NET Web Pages...6 ASP.NET MVC...7 The MVC Pattern... 7 When to Use ASP.NET MVC... 8 ASP.NET MVC Benefits... 8 ASP.NET MVC Request Processing... 8 ASP.NET MVC 4 Features... 9 Summary...10 Chapter 2: Installing ASP.NET MVC Software Requirements for ASP.NET MVC Installing ASP.NET MVC 4 Development Components...12 Using Web Platform Installer Using the Stand-alone Installer Installing ASP.NET MVC 4 Server Components...17 vii

8 Contents Visual Studio Application Templates...17 Choose the Project Template Choose a View Engine Create a Unit Test Project for Your Application Anatomy of an ASP.NET MVC 4 Internet Application...22 Summary...24 Chapter 3: The Have You Seen Me? ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Application...25 Description of the Application...25 Administrative Section Public Section Members Section Creating the ASP.NET MVC 4 Sample Application...27 Creating the Database...28 Defining Scripts to Create Database Tables Running the Scripts Summary...38 Chapter 4: Controllers...39 The Routing Engine...39 Creating Controllers...41 Working with Action Methods...42 Using FileResult Using HttpStatusCodeResult Using HttpNotFoundResult Summary...46 Chapter 5: Views...47 Understanding View Engines...47 Working with Views...49 The Rendering Process...52 Understanding the Razor View Engine...54 viii

9 Contents Working with HTML Helper Methods...57 Working with ViewData and ViewBag...58 Working with Strongly Typed Views...60 Introducing ASP.NET MVC 4 Mobile Features...62 Summary...67 Chapter 6: Models...69 What Are Models?...69 Creating the Data Model...70 What Are ORMs? Adding the Entity Framework Model Adding a Business Model...81 Adding View Models...88 Understanding Model Binding...89 Summary...93 Chapter 7: Data Validation...95 The Validation Workflow...95 Manual Validation...98 Validation with Data Annotations Creating Custom Data Annotations Summary Chapter 8: Ajax and jquery Introducing jquery Working with jquery jquery Selectors Event Handling with jquery Understanding Unobtrusive JavaScript Working with Ajax Triggering Ajax Calls Creating Ajax Forms ix

10 Contents Creating Ajax ActionLinks Implementing Ajax Callbacks Making Ajax Requests Directly with jquery Working with JSON Returning JSON from an Action Method Using JSON in the Browser Introducing Web API Using the ASP.NET MVC 4 Web API Project Template Creating Web API Controllers Summary Chapter 9: Security Authentication and Authorization Using Windows Authentication Using Forms Authentication Securing Controllers and Action Methods Authenticating with External Sources Getting Keys from Facebook and Twitter for OAuth Getting Keys from Microsoft for OAuth Configuring the Application to Use the Keys Implementing Membership and Roles Configuring ASP.NET Membership and Roles Using the ASP.NET SimpleMembership API Using the ASP.NET Membership API Using Roles Securing ASP.NET MVC Applications Against External Attacks Preventing Cross-Site Scripting Preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery Preventing Other Types of Attacks Summary x

11 Contents Chapter 10: Routing Routing Concepts URL Pattern Routes Creating Custom Routes Creating a Catch-all Segment Adding Constraints to Routes Understanding When Routing Is Not Applied A Physical File Is Found that Matches the URL Pattern Routing Is Explicitly Disabled for a URL Pattern ASP.NET Routing vs. URL Rewriting Reading Parameters from the URL Generating Links and URLs Summary Chapter 11: Testing the Application Understanding Unit Testing Defining a Unit Test Structure of Unit Tests Understanding Isolation Naming Unit Tests Testing Frameworks Benefits of Unit Testing Examining the Test Project Creating a Test Project Running Tests Testing Business Models Identifying External Dependencies Separating your Code from External Dependencies Mocking External Dependencies xi

12 Contents Testing Controllers Testing Action Methods That Return a View Testing View Model Objects Testing Redirections Testing HTTP Status Codes Testing Routes Testing Routing for Disabled URL Patterns Testing Routes Summary Chapter 12: Deploying the Application Preparing the Application for Deployment Enabling Compile-Time Error Checking for Views Disabling Debugging and Verbose Errors Updating Settings in Web.config for Production Deploying to an In-House Server Deploying the Database Deploying the Application Deploying to Windows Azure Setting Up a Web Site and Database in Windows Azure Deploying to Windows Azure Web Sites Using the Windows Azure SDK Summary Index xii

13 About the Author José Rolando Guay Paz has over 18 years of experience in the field of software development. He has developed software for different types of companies such as retailers, banks, manufacturers, and many more. He holds a degree in computer science from the University of San Carlos of Guatemala and a master s degree in finance from the Carlos III University of Madrid. He s a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer and has some certifiactions on SQL Server. xiii

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15 About the Technical Reviewer Andy Olsen is a freelance consultant and instructor based in the UK. Andy has been working with.net since the early Betas and spends a lot of time these days working with ASP.NET MVC4, Azure cloud solutions, and general web development using HTML5, CSS3, and various fun JavaScript libraries. Andy lives by the sea in Swansea, South Wales and enjoys running (with plenty of coffee stops), skiing, and watching the Swans! You can reach Andy at andyo@olsensoft.com. xv

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17 Acknowledgments I want to thank the wonderful team at Apress for helping me to complete this book. I especially want to thank Andy Olsen for his valuable help. He worked very hard reviewing the manuscript and providing feedback that greatly enhanced the concepts and examples in the book. Also thanks to Ewan Buckingham, Anamika Panchoo, William McManus, Kumar Dhaneesh, and the rest of the team that made this book a reality. xvii

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19 Introduction With the introduction of ASP.NET MVC in 2009, Microsoft offered developers a new approach to building web applications based on the Microsoft stack. By combining the power and maturity of ASP.NET and the.net Framework with the advantages of the MVC pattern, ASP.NET MVC offers web application developers important features, such as testability, full control over the generated HTML, and great support for large teams working on the same project by separating the application into the model, the view, and the controller. The purpose of this book is to introduce you to the latest version of ASP.NET MVC, version 4. To ground the book in the real world of developing web applications, the concepts presented in all the chapters are examined in the context of a sample web application. The book is basically divided into three parts. The first part, comprising Chapters 1 through 3, starts with a brief introduction to ASP.NET and discusses where MVC fits into the whole ASP.NET framework. Chapter 2 describes the software requirements and the different options for installing ASP.NET MVC 4. Chapter 3 explains the sample application you are going to build and the tools that you need to build it, and then steps you through the actual creation and configuration of the sample application. The second part, Chapters 4 through 6, explains the three core components of the MVC pattern. Chapter 4 examines controllers, including how controllers handle user requests through action methods and how results are produced. Controllers is the first concept as that s where it all beings, handling a request from the user. Chapter 5 explains views and how HTML is generated. It shows how to process server-side code with the new Razor view engine and how to produce appropriate output for desktop and mobile devices. Generating a response to the user is the second concept as is normally what happens after the request is processed. Finally, Chapter 6 examines models. It defines the domain model of the application by showing how to create the data model using Entity Framework and the business models using C# classes. It also examines what view models are and how to use them effectively to produce the final HTML in the browser. The third part, Chapters 7 12, examines different aspects of the ASP.NET MVC framework, such as data validation (Chapter 7), security (Chapter 9), and routing (Chapter 10). Chapter 8 shows you how to work with client-side code using jquery and Ajax, and Chapter 11 demonstrates how to test the different aspects of your application using unit testing. Finally, Chapter 12 explains how to deploy the application to servers you control and to Windows Azure. I hope that this book gives you a great foundation upon which to start building web applications using ASP.NET MVC 4. We will be using Visual Studio 2012 for the examples in the book. You can use any of the paid versions (Professional, Premium or Ultimate) or the fee Express version. Also, some of the images you will see are based on modifications made to Visual Studio in update 2, so you will need to install that update as well. You can download Visual Studio 2012 and update 2 from xix