The primary difference between developing RPC vs ServiceStack's Message-based Services is that the Services entire contract is defined by its typed messages, specifically the Request DTO which defines both the System inputs and identifies the System output. Typically both are POCO DTOs however the response can be any serializable object.
The simplest Service example that does this is:
public class MyRequest : IReturn<MyRequest> {}
public class MyServices : Service
{
public object Any(MyRequest request) => request;
}
As only the Any() wildcard method is defined, it will get executed whenever the MyRequest Service is invoked via any HTTP Verb, gRPC, MQ or SOAP Request.
The Request DTO is also all that's required to invoke it via any Typed Generic Service Client in any supported language, e.g:
MyRequest response = client.Get(new MyRequest());
All Services are accessible by their pre-defined routes, we can turn it into a functional data-driven Service by annotating it with a user-defined route and changing the implementation to return all App Contacts:
public class Contact
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
[Route("/contacts")]
public class GetContacts : IReturn<List<Contact>> { }
public class ContactsService : Service
{
public object Get(GetContacts request) => Db.Select<Contact>();
}
Which your C# clients will still be able to call with:
List<Contact> response = client.Get(new GetContacts());
This will make a GET call to the custom /contacts URL and returns all rows from the Contact Table in the configured RDBMS using OrmLite
Select() extension method on the base.Db ADO.NET IDbConnection property on ServiceStack's convenience Service base class.
Using Get() limits access to this service from HTTP GET requests only, all other HTTP Verbs requests to /contacts will return a 404 NotFound HTTP Error Response.
Using explicit Response DTO
Our recommendation instead of returning naked collections is returning an explicit predictable Response DTO, e.g:
[Route("/contacts")]
public class GetContacts : IReturn<GetContactsResponse> { }
public class GetContactsResponse
{
public List<Contact> Results { get; set; }
public ResponseStatus ResponseStatus { get; set; }
}
public class ContactsService : Service
{
public object Get(GetContacts request) => new GetContactsResponse {
Results = Db.Select<Contact>()
};
}
Whilst slightly more verbose this style benefits from more resilience in evolving and versioning message-based Services and more coarse-grained APIs as additional results can be added to the Response DTO without breaking existing clients.
You'll also need to follow the above convention if you also wanted to support SOAP endpoints or if you want to be able to handle Typed Response Messages in MQ Services.
All APIs have a preferred default method
Like the Send* APIs before them, both API Explorer and the new Api* methods send API requests using an APIs preferred HTTP Method which can be defined either:
- Explicitly annotating Request DTOs with
IGet,IPost, etc. IVerb interface markers - Using the verb specified in its user-defined
[Route]attribute (if single verb specified) - Implicitly when using AutoQuery/CRUD Request DTOs
- Using the Services Verb() implementation method if not using Any()
If the HTTP Method can't be inferred, it defaults to using HTTP POST. But as good API documentation practice, we recommend specifying the HTTP Method each API should use, preferably using the IVerb interface marker, so it's embedded into the APIs Services Contract shared with clients (not required for AutoQuery APIs).
ServiceStack's API Design
We'll walk through a few examples here but for a more detailed look into the usages and capabilities of ServiceStack's API design checkout its Comprehensive Test Suite
At a minimum ServiceStack Services only need to implement the IService empty interface:
public interface IService {}
The interface is used as a Marker interface that ServiceStack uses to find, register and auto-wire your existing services. Although you're more likely going to want to inherit from ServiceStack's convenience concrete Service class which contains easy access to ServiceStack's providers:
public class Service : IService
{
IRequest Request { get; } // HTTP Request Context
IResponse Response { get; } // HTTP Response Context
IServiceGateway Gateway { get; } // Built-in Service Gateway
IMessageProducer MessageProducer { get; } // Message Producer for Registered MQ Server
void PublishMessage(T message); // Publish messages to Registered MQ Server
IVirtualPathProvider VirtualFileSources { get; } // Virtual FileSystem Sources
IVirtualFiles VirtualFiles { get; } // Writable Virtual FileSystem
ICacheClient Cache { get; } // Registered Caching Provider
ICacheClientAsync CacheAsync { get; } // Registered Async Caching Provider (or sync wrapper)
MemoryCacheClient LocalCache { get; } // Local InMemory Caching Provider
IDbConnection Db { get; } // Registered ADO.NET IDbConnection
IRedisClient Redis { get; } // Registered RedisClient
ValueTask<IRedisClientAsync> GetRedisAsync(); // Registered Async RedisClient
IAuthRepository AuthRepository { get; } // Registered User Repository
IAuthRepositoryAsync AuthRepositoryAsync { get; } // Registered Async User Repository
ISession SessionBag { get; } // Dynamic Session Bag
ISessionAsync SessionBagAsync { get; } // Dynamic Async Session Bag
Task<TUserSession> SessionAsAsync<TUserSession>(); // Resolve Typed UserSession Async
TUserSession SessionAs<TUserSession>(); // Resolve Typed UserSession
IAuthSession GetSession() { get; } // Resolve base IAuthSession
Task<IAuthSession> GetSessionAsync(); // Resolve base IAuthSession Async
bool IsAuthenticated { get; } // Is Authenticated Request
T TryResolve<T>(); // Resolve dependency at runtime
T ResolveService<T>(); // Resolve an auto-wired service
T GetPlugin<T>(); // Resolve optional registered Plugin
T AssertPlugin<T>(); // Resolve required registered Plugin
void Dispose(); // Override to implement custom IDispose
ValueTask DisposeAsync(); // implement IAsyncDisposable (.NET v4.7.2+)
}
Basic example - Handling Any HTTP Verb
Lets revisit the Simple example from earlier:
[Route("/contacts")]
public class GetContacts : IReturn<List<Contact>> { }
public class ContactsService : Service
{
public object Get(GetContacts request) => Db.Select<Contact>();
}
ServiceStack maps HTTP Requests to your Services Actions. An Action is any method that:
- Is
public - Only contains a single argument - the typed Request DTO
- Has a Method name matching a HTTP Method or Any (the fallback that can handle "ANY" method)
- Methods can have Format suffix to handle specific formats, e.g. if exists
GetJsonwill handle GET JSON requests
- Methods can have Format suffix to handle specific formats, e.g. if exists
- Can specify either
TorobjectReturn type, both have same behavior
Content-Type Specific Service Implementations
Service methods can also use Verb{Format} method names to provide a different implementation for handling a specific Content-Type.
The Service below defines several different implementation for handling the same Request:
[Route("/my-request")]
public class MyRequest
{
public string Name { get; set; }
}
public class ContentTypeServices : Service
{
public object GetJson(MyRequest request) => ..; // Handles GET /my-request for JSON responses
public object GetHtml(MyRequest request) => // Handles GET /my-request for HTML Responses
$@"<html>
<body>
<h1>GetHtml {request.Name}</h1>
</body>
</html>";
public object AnyHtml(MyRequest request) => // Handles other POST/PUT/etc Verbs for HTML Responses
$@"<html>
<body>
<h1>AnyHtml {request.Name}</h1>
</body>
</html>";
public object Any(MyRequest request) => ...; // Handles all other unspecified Verbs/Formats
}
Optional *Async Suffixes
In addition your Services can optionally have the *Async suffix which by .NET Standard (and ServiceStack) guidelines is preferred for Async methods to telegraph to client call sites that its response should be awaited.
[Route("/contacts")]
public class GetContacts : IReturn<List<Contact>> { }
public class ContactsService : Service
{
public async Task<object> GetAsync(GetContacts request) =>
await Db.SelectAsync<Contact>();
public object GetHtmlAsync(MyRequest request) =>
$@"<html>
<body>
<h1>GetHtml {request.Name}</h1>
</body>
</html>";
}
If both exists (e.g. Post() and PostAsync()) the *Async method will take precedence and be invoked instead.
Allowing both is useful if you have internal services directly invoking other Services using HostContext.ResolveService<T>() where you can upgrade your Service to use an Async implementation without breaking existing clients, e.g. this is used in RegisterService.cs:
[Obsolete("Use PostAsync")]
public object Post(Register request)
{
try
{
var task = PostAsync(request);
return task.GetResult();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
throw e.UnwrapIfSingleException();
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Create new Registration
/// </summary>
public async Task<object> PostAsync(Register request)
{
//... async impl
}
To change to use an async implementation whilst retaining backwards compatibility with existing call sites, e.g:
using var service = HostContext.ResolveService<RegisterService>(Request);
var response = service.Post(new Register { ... });
This is important if the response is ignored as the C# compiler wont give you any hints to await the response which can lead to timing issues where the Services is invoked but User Registration hasn't completed as-is often assumed.
Alternatively you can rename your method to use *Async suffix so the C# compiler will fail on call sites so you can replace the call-sites to await the async Task response, e.g:
using var service = HostContext.ResolveService<RegisterService>(Request);
var response = await service.PostAsync(new Register { ... });
Group Services by Tag
Related Services by can be grouped by annotating Request DTOs with the [Tag] attribute where they'll enable functionality in a number of ServiceStack's metadata services where they'll be used to Group Services in Open API.
This feature could be used to tag which Services are used by different platforms:
[Tag("web")]
public class WebApi : IReturn<MyResponse> {}
[Tag("mobile")]
public class MobileApi : IReturn<MyResponse> {}
[Tag("web"),Tag("mobile")]
public class WebAndMobileApi : IReturn<MyResponse> {}
Where they'll appear as a tab to additionally filter APIs in metadata pages:
They're also supported in Add ServiceStack Reference where it can be used in the IncludeTypes DTO customization option where tags can be specified using braces in the format {tag} or {tag1,tag2,tag3}, e.g:
/* Options:
IncludeTypes: {web,mobile}
Or individually:
/* Options:
IncludeTypes: {web},{mobile}
It works similar to Dependent Type References wildcard syntax where it expands all Request DTOs with the tag to include all its reference types so including a {web} tag would be equivalent to including all Request DTOs & reference types with that reference, e.g:
/* Options:
IncludeTypes: WebApi.*,WebAndMobileApi.*
Micro ORMs and ADO.NET's IDbConnection
Code-First Micro ORMS like OrmLite and
Dapper provides a pleasant high-level experience whilst working directly against ADO.NET's low-level IDbConnection. They both support all major databases so you immediately have access to a flexible RDBMS option out-of-the-box. At the same time you're not limited to using the providers contained in the Service class and can continue to use your own register IOC dependencies (inc. an alternate IOC itself).
Micro ORM POCOs make good DTOs
The POCOs used in Micro ORMS are particularly well suited for re-using as DTOs since they don't contain any circular references that the Heavy ORMs have (e.g. EF). OrmLite goes 1-step further and borrows pages from NoSQL's playbook where any complex property e.g. List<MyPoco> is transparently blobbed in a schema-less text field, promoting the design of frictionless Pure POCOS that are uninhibited by RDBMS concerns. In many cases these POCO data models already make good DTOs and can be returned directly instead of mapping to domain-specific DTOs.
Calling Services from a Typed C# Client
In Service development your services DTOs provides your technology agnostic Service Layer which you want to keep clean and as 'dependency-free' for maximum accessibility and potential re-use. Our recommendation is to follow our Recommended Physical Project Structure and keep your DTOs in a separate ServiceModel project which ensures a well-defined ServiceContract decoupled from their implementation and accessible from any client. This recommended Physical project structure is embedded in each ServiceStack VS.NET Template.
One of ServiceStack's strengths is its ability to re-use your Server DTOs on the client enabling ServiceStack's productive end-to-end typed API. ServiceStack's use of Typed DTOs in its message-based design enable greater resiliency for your Services where the exact DTOs aren't needed, only the shape of the DTOs is important and clients can also opt to use partial DTOs containing just the fields they're interested in. In the same way extending existing Services with new optional properties wont break existing clients using older DTOs.
When developing both Server and Client applications the easiest way to call typed Services from clients is to just have them reference the same ServiceModel .dll the Server uses to define its Service Contract, or for clients that only need to call a couple of Service you can choose to instead copy the class definitions as-is, in both cases calling Services is exactly the same where the Request DTO can be used with any of the generic C#/.NET Service Clients to call Services using a succinct typed API, e.g:
Service Model Classes
[Route("/contacts")]
public class GetContacts : IReturn<List<Contact>> { }
public class Contact { ... }
Which can used in any ServiceClient with:
var client = new JsonServiceClient(BaseUri);
List<Contact> response = client.Get(new GetContacts());
Which makes a GET web request to the /contacts route. Custom Routes on Request DTO's are also not required as when none are defined the client automatically falls back to using ServiceStack's pre-defined routes.
Generating Typed DTOs
In addition to being able to share your ServiceModel.dll on .NET Clients enable a typed end-to-end API without code-gen, clients
can alternatively choose to use Add ServiceStack Reference support to provide an
alternative way to get the Services typed DTOs on the client. In both cases the exact same source code is used to call the Services:
var client = new JsonServiceClient(BaseUri);
var response = client.Get(new GetContacts());
Add ServiceStack Reference is also available for most popular languages used in developing Web, Mobile and Desktop Apps.
Custom API Requests
When preferred, you can also use the previous more explicit client API (ideal for when you don't have the IReturn<> marker) which
lets you call the Service using just its route:
var response = client.Get<List<Contact>>("/contacts");
INFO
All these Service Client APIs have async equivalents with an *Async suffix
API QueryParams
ServiceStack's message-based design is centered around sending a single message which is all that's required to invoke any Typed API, however there may be times when you need to send additional params where you can't change the API's Request DTO definition or in AutoQuery's case its Implicit Conventions would require too many permutations to be able to type the entire surface area on each Request DTO.
Typically this would inhibit being able to invoke these Services from a typed Service Client API that would instead need to either use the untyped Get<T>(relativeUrl) ServiceClient APIs or HTTP Utils to construct the API Request path manually.
Alternatively Request DTOs can implement IHasQueryParams where any entries will be sent as additional query params along with the typed DTO:
public interface IHasQueryParams
{
Dictionary<string, string> QueryParams { get; set; }
}
Which is available in all AutoQuery DTOs where it's added as a non-serializable property so it's only included in the QueryString:
[DataContract]
public abstract class QueryBase : IQuery, IHasQueryParams
{
//...
[IgnoreDataMember]
public virtual Dictionary<string, string> QueryParams { get; set; }
}
Which allows using existing ServiceClient typed APIs to send a combination of untyped queries in AutoQuery requests, e.g:
var api = await client.ApiAsync(new QueryContacts {
IdsIn = new[]{ 1, 2, 3 },
QueryParams = new() {
["LastNameStartsWith"] = "A"
}
});
Everything centered around Request DTOs
A nice property of ServiceStack's message-based design is all functionality is centered around Typed Request DTOs which easily lets you take advantage of high-level value-added functionality like Auto Batched Requests or Encrypted Messaging which are enabled automatically without any effort or easily opt-in to enhanced functionality by decorating Request DTOs or thier Services with Metadata and Filter Attributes and everything works together, binded against typed models naturally.
E.g. you can take advantage of ServiceStack's Razor support and create a web page for this service by just adding a Razor view with the same name as the Request DTO in the /Views folder,
which for the GetContacts Request DTO you can just add /Views/GetContacts.cshtml and it will get rendered with the Services Response DTO as its View Model when the Service is called from a browser (i.e. HTTP Request with Accept: text/html).
Thanks to ServiceStack's built-in Content Negotiation you can fetch the HTML contents calling the same url:
var html = $"{BaseUri}/contacts".GetStringFromUrl(accept:"text/html");
This feature is particularly nice as it lets you re-use your existing services to serve both Web and Native Mobile and Desktop clients.
Action Filters
Service actions can also contain fine-grained application of Request and Response filters, e.g:
public class ContactsService : Service
{
[ClientCanSwapTemplates]
public object Get(GetContacts request) => Db.Select<Contact>();
}
This Request Filter allows the client to change the selected Razor View and Template used at runtime. By default the view with the same name as the Request or Response DTO is used.
Handling different HTTP Verbs
ServiceStack Services lets you handle any HTTP Verb in the same way, e.g this lets you respond with CORS headers to a HTTP OPTIONS request with:
public class ContactsService : Service
{
[EnableCors]
public void Options(GetContact request) {}
}
Which if you now make an OPTIONS request to the above service, will emit the default [EnableCors] headers:
var webReq = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(Host + "/contacts");
webReq.Method = "OPTIONS";
using var webRes = webReq.GetResponse();
webRes.Headers["Access-Control-Allow-Origin"] // *
webRes.Headers["Access-Control-Allow-Methods"] // GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS
webRes.Headers["Access-Control-Allow-Headers"] // Content-Type
PATCH request example
Handling a PATCH request is just as easy, e.g. here's an example of using PATCH to handle a partial update of a Resource:
[Route("/contacts/{Id}", "PATCH")]
public class UpdateContact : IReturn<Contact>
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public int Age { get; set; }
}
public Contact Patch(UpdateContact request)
{
var Contact = request.ConvertTo<Contact>();
Db.UpdateNonDefaults(Contact);
return Db.SingleById<Contact>(request.Id);
}
And the client call is just as easy as you would expect:
var response = client.Patch(new UpdateContact { Id = 1, Age = 18 });
Although sending different HTTP Verbs are unrestricted in native clients, they're unfortunately not allowed in some web browsers and proxies. So to simulate a PATCH from an AJAX request you need to set the X-Http-Method-Override HTTP Header.
Structured Error Handling
When following the explicit Response DTO Naming convention ServiceStack will automatically populate the ResponseStatus property with a structured Error Response otherwise if returning other DTOs like naked collections ServiceStack will instead return a generic ErrorResponse, although this is mostly a transparent technical detail you don't need to know about as for schema-less formats like JSON they return the exact same wire-format.
Error Handling works naturally in ServiceStack where you can simply throw C# Exceptions, e.g:
public List<Contact> Post(Contact request)
{
if (!request.Age.HasValue)
throw new ArgumentException("Age is required");
Db.Insert(request.ConvertTo<Contact>());
return Db.Select<Contact>();
}
This will result in an Error thrown on the client if it tried to create an empty Contact:
try
{
var response = client.Post(new Contact());
}
catch (WebServiceException webEx)
{
webEx.StatusCode // 400
webEx.StatusDescription // ArgumentException
webEx.ResponseStatus.ErrorCode // ArgumentException
webEx.ResponseStatus.Message // Age is required
webEx.ResponseDto is ErrorResponse // true
}
The same Service Clients Exception handling is also used to handle any HTTP error generated in or outside of your service, e.g. here's how to detect if a HTTP Method isn't implemented or disallowed:
try
{
var response = client.Send(new SearchContacts());
}
catch (WebServiceException webEx)
{
webEx.StatusCode // 405
webEx.StatusDescription // Method Not Allowed
}
In addition to standard C# exceptions your services can also return multiple, rich and detailed validation errors as enforced by Fluent Validation's validators.
Overriding the default Exception handling
You can override the default exception handling in ServiceStack by registering a ServiceExceptionHandlers, e.g:
void Configure(Container container)
{
this.ServiceExceptionHandlers.Add((req, reqDto, ex) => {
return ...;
});
}
Smart Routing
For the most part you won't need to know about this as ServiceStack's routing works as you would expect. Although this should still serve as a good reference to describe the resolution order of ServiceStack's Routes:
- Any exact Literal Matches are used first
- Exact Verb match is preferred over All Verbs
- The more variables in your route the less weighting it has
- When Routes have the same weight, the order is determined by the position of the Action in the service or Order of Registration (FIFO)
These Rules only come into play when there are multiple routes that matches the pathInfo of an incoming request.
Lets see some examples of these rules in action using the routes defined in the API Design test suite:
[Route("/contacts")]
public class Contact {}
[Route("/contacts", "GET")]
public class GetContacts {}
[Route("/contacts/{Id}", "GET")]
public class GetContact {}
[Route("/contacts/{Id}/{Field}")]
public class ViewContact {}
[Route("/contacts/{Id}/delete")]
public class DeleteContact {}
[Route("/contacts/{Id}", "PATCH")]
public class UpdateContact {}
[Route("/contacts/reset")]
public class ResetContact {}
[Route("/contacts/search")]
[Route("/contacts/aged/{Age}")]
public class SearchContacts {}
These are results for these HTTP Requests
GET /contacts => GetContacts
POST /contacts => Contact
GET /contacts/search => SearchContacts
GET /contacts/reset => ResetContact
PATCH /contacts/reset => ResetContact
PATCH /contacts/1 => UpdateContact
GET /contacts/1 => GetContact
GET /contacts/1/delete => DeleteContact
GET /contacts/1/foo => ViewContact
And if there were multiple of the exact same routes declared like:
[Route("/req/{Id}", "GET")]
public class Req2 {}
[Route("/req/{Id}", "GET")]
public class Req1 {}
public class MyService : Service {
public object Get(Req1 request) { ... }
public object Get(Req2 request) { ... }
}
The Route on the Action that was declared first gets selected, i.e:
GET /req/1 => Req1
Populating Complex Type Properties on QueryString
ServiceStack uses the JSV-Format (JSON without quotes) to parse QueryStrings.
JSV lets you embed deep object graphs in QueryString as seen this example url:
https://test.servicestack.net/json/reply/StoreLogs?Loggers=[{Id:786,Devices:[{Id:5955,Type:Panel,
Channels:[{Name:Temperature,Value:58},{Name:Status,Value:On}]},
{Id:5956,Type:Tank,TimeStamp:1199303309,
Channels:[{Name:Volume,Value:10035},{Name:Status,Value:Full}]}]}]
Advanced Usages
Custom Hooks
The ability to extend ServiceStack's service execution pipeline with Custom Hooks is an advanced customization feature that for most times is not needed as the preferred way to add composable functionality to your services is to use Request / Response Filter attributes or apply them globally with Global Request/Response Filters.
Custom Serialized Responses
The new IHttpResult.ResultScope API provides an opportunity to execute serialization within a custom scope, e.g. this can
be used to customize the serialized response of adhoc services that's different from the default global configuration with:
return new HttpResult(dto) {
ResultScope = () => JsConfig.With(new Config { IncludeNullValues = true })
};
Which enables custom serialization behavior by performing the serialization within the custom scope, equivalent to:
using (JsConfig.With(new Config { IncludeNullValues = true }))
{
var customSerializedResponse = Serialize(dto);
}
Request and Response Converters
The Encrypted Messaging Feature takes advantage of Request and Response Converters that let you change the Request DTO and Response DTO's that get used in ServiceStack's Request Pipeline where:
Request Converters
Request Converters are executed directly after any Custom Request Binders:
appHost.RequestConverters.Add(async (req, requestDto) => {
//Return alternative Request DTO or null to retain existing DTO
});
Response Converters
Response Converters are executed directly after the Service:
appHost.ResponseConverters.Add(async (req, response) =>
//Return alternative Response or null to retain existing Service response
});
Intercept Service Requests
As an alternative to creating a Custom Service Runner to intercept
different events when processing ServiceStack Requests, you can instead override the OnBeforeExecute(), OnAfterExecute() and OnExceptionAsync()
callbacks in your Service class (or base class) to intercept and modify Request DTOs, Responses or Error Responses, e.g:
class MyServices : Service
{
// Log all Request DTOs that implement IHasSessionId
public override void OnBeforeExecute(object requestDto)
{
if (requestDto is IHasSessionId dtoSession)
{
Log.Debug($"{nameof(OnBeforeExecute)}: {dtoSession.SessionId}");
}
}
//Return Response DTO Name in HTTP Header with Response
public override object OnAfterExecute(object response)
{
return new HttpResult(response) {
Headers = {
["X-Response"] = response.GetType().Name
}
};
}
//Return custom error with additional metadata
public override Task<object> OnExceptionAsync(object requestDto, Exception ex)
{
var error = DtoUtils.CreateErrorResponse(requestDto, ex);
if (error is IHttpError httpError)
{
var errorStatus = httpError.Response.GetResponseStatus();
errorStatus.Meta = new Dictionary<string,string> {
["InnerType"] = ex.InnerException?.GetType().Name
};
}
return Task.FromResult(error);
}
}
Async Callbacks
For async callbacks your Services can implement IServiceBeforeFilterAsync and IServiceAfterFilterAsync, e.g:
public class MyServices : Service, IServiceBeforeFilterAsync, IServiceAfterFilterAsync
{
public async Task OnBeforeExecuteAsync(object requestDto)
{
//...
}
public async Task<object> OnAfterExecuteAsync(object response)
{
//...
return response;
}
}
If you're implementing IService instead of inheriting the concrete Service class, you can implement the interfaces directly:
// Handle all callbacks
public class MyServices : IService, IServiceFilters
{
//..
}
// Or individually, just the callbacks you want
public class MyServices : IService, IServiceBeforeFilter, IServiceAfterFilter, IServiceErrorFilter
{
//..
}
Custom Service Runner
The IServiceRunner decouples the execution of your service from the implementation of it which provides an alternative custom hook which lets you add custom behavior to all Services without needing to use a base Service class.
To add your own Service Hooks you just need to override the default Service Runner in your AppHost from its default implementation:
public virtual IServiceRunner<TRequest> CreateServiceRunner<TRequest>(ActionContext actionContext)
{
return new ServiceRunner<TRequest>(this, actionContext); //Cached per Service Action
}
With your own:
public override IServiceRunner<TRequest> CreateServiceRunner<TRequest>(ActionContext actionContext)
{
return new MyServiceRunner<TRequest>(this, actionContext); //Cached per Service Action
}
Where MyServiceRunner<T> is just a custom class implementing the custom hooks you're interested in, e.g:
public class MyServiceRunner<T> : ServiceRunner<T>
{
public override void OnBeforeExecute(IRequest req, TRequest requestDto) {
// Called just before any Action is executed
}
public override Task<object> ExecuteAsync(IRequest req, object serviceInstance, TRequest requestDto) {
// Called to execute the Service instance with the requestDto
return base.ExecuteAsync(req, serviceInstance, requestDto);
}
public override object OnAfterExecute(IRequest req, object response) {
// Called just after any Action is executed, you can modify the response returned here as well
}
public override Task<object> HandleExceptionAsync(IRequest req, TRequest requestDto, Exception ex) {
// Called whenever an exception is thrown in your Services Action
}
}
Limitations
One limitation of Services is that you can't split the handling of a single Resource (i.e. Request DTO) over multiple service implementations. If you find you need to do this because your service is getting too big, consider using partial classes to spread the implementation over multiple files. Another option is encapsulating some of the re-usable functionality into Logic dependencies and inject them into your service.
Other Notes
Although they're not needed or used anywhere you can also use HTTP Verb interfaces to enforce the correct signature required by the services, e.g:
public class MyService : Service, IAny<GetContacts>, IGet<SearchContacts>, IPost<Contact>
{
public object Any(GetContacts request) { .. }
public object Get(SearchContacts request) { .. }
public object Post(Contact request) { .. }
}
This has no effect to the runtime behaviour and your services will work the same way with or without the added interfaces.