Problems Injecting properties with Simple Injector on Web Api ActionFilters

Question

We recently switched from ninject to Simple Injector because ninject is really slow. I'm running into a serious problem when trying to inject Web Api ActionFilter properties during runtime. No matter what I have tried they are not resolved. I'm basing the code on the following docs here and here and here. Please note that I've also tried registering my own IFilterProvider..

I'm creating my container like this:

var container = new Container();
container.Options.PropertySelectionBehavior = new InjectAttributePropertySelectionBehavior();
GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.DependencyResolver = new SimpleInjectorWebApiDependencyResolver(container);

My attribute

public class InjectAttribute : Attribute { }

IPropertySelectionBehavior implementation

public class InjectAttributePropertySelectionBehavior : IPropertySelectionBehavior {
    public bool SelectProperty(Type serviceType, PropertyInfo property) {
        return property.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(InjectAttribute), true).Any();
    }
}

Sample code that I'm trying inject.

public class MyActionFilterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute {
    [Inject]
    public IMyRepository MyRepository { get; set; }
}

Has anyone else been able to inject properties on Web Api ActionFilters?

Answer 1

I just tried to reproduce your issue by building a sample Web API project with the code in the articles you referenced, but it worked directly.

What I did was the following:

1. Create an empty Web API project in Visual Studio.
2. Added the SimpleInjectorWebApiDependencyResolver from here and registered (just as in your question).
3. Added the SimpleInjectorActionFilterProvider from here and registered it as shown just below the code snippet in that article.
4. Added your InjectAttributePropertySelectionBehavior and registered it like in your example.
5. Added your InjectAttribute.
6. Added your MyActionFilterAttribute (and overwrite the OnActionExecuting method to be able to set a break point).
7. Added the IMyRepository and a MyRepositoryImpl class.
8. Registered the MyRepositoryImpl by its interface in the container.
9. I decorated one of my Action methods with the MyActionFilterAttribute.

After doing this and running the application by calling the action, I see visual studio breaking inside the OnActionExecuting method with the MyRepository property being set.

This is my configuration:

var container = new Container();
container.Options.PropertySelectionBehavior = 
    new InjectAttributePropertySelectionBehavior();

container.Register<IMyRepository, MyRepositoryImpl>();

GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.DependencyResolver = 
    new SimpleInjectorWebApiDependencyResolver(container);

GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Services.Remove(typeof(IFilterProvider),
    GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Services.GetFilterProviders()
        .OfType<ActionDescriptorFilterProvider>().Single());

GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Services.Add(
    typeof(IFilterProvider),
    new SimpleInjectorActionFilterProvider(container));