How find references for MVC controller methods in Visual Studio

Coming from a long period of WebForms development, I recently began working with MVC. One thing that struck me, is that since controller methods are not called directly from code, Visual Studio won't pick up any references to them.

I understand the reason why there is no reference count, but it can be problematic sometimes. Let's say I rewrite a controller method to accomodate some new requirement, perhaps a certain call to the method needs additional data or a modified result. But perhaps that method, or endpoint if you will, is being called from several places, and the change I made breaks the result handling for those other calls. I would like to be able to easily find all the code in my solution, which is going to invoke the endpoint.

Currently I tend to copy the method name and perform a regular text search in the entire solution, which works rather well as long as the method name isn't too generic. If the method name is "Index", it can be a long day.

Are there any recommendations on how to simplify this, such as coding conventions, plugins or otherwise? I.E. how can I locate from where the endpoint will be invoked?

I currently use Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise, but solutions working in other versions as well are preferred - to make the answer useful for as many as possible. Thanks in advance / Culme

UPDATE: I learned a lot based on the comments and replies I got. Apart from what is mentioned below, I also decided to try and keep my controller method names unique and identifiable, to simplify finding where they are being used. As an example, instead of just "Index", I'll try to use "Fidgets_IndexController" or something similar. That way, a simple text search will go a long way for locating calling code.

Upvotes: 7

Answers (3)

Jess

Reputation: 25147

Another option if you know the application fairly well. Put a breakpoint on the controller action and then run some tests of the application.

Upvotes: 1

trailmax

Reputation: 35126

One of the options is Resharper - it more or less can determine where you use Html.ActionLink() or Html.BeginForm() that points to a controller action. But it won't detect any posts/redirects done from JS.

Also another thing you can do is use T4MVC to make the links from views statically typed, so you can search on references.

Text search through the solution can help, but not always good as you already discovered - how many references to string Index do you have in an average MVC project? So this will help with distinctive controller/action names, but not with common names.

Apart from that you are on your own. If you try doing something clever, like in JS concatenate strings to give you the right endpoint - you are in trouble.

Upvotes: 2

Kellei

Reputation: 61

Controller methods are not directly referenced from any part of the code (therefore 0 references), but they are dynamically invoked based on RouteTable which maps controller methods on startup RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes); in global.asax "implicitly" which would map them as /controller_name/action_name or these can be changed by either editing RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) or using attributes:

[Route("myAction")]
public ActionResult MyAction() {
...
}

which would bind it to /myAction (without controller name)

How find references for MVC controller methods in Visual Studio

Answers (3)

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