ASP.NET MVC Execution Process

Note:

When an ASP.NET MVC Web application runs in IIS 7.0, no file name extension is required for MVC projects. However, in IIS 6.0, the handler requires that you map the .mvc file name extension to the ASP.NET ISAPI DLL.

The following table lists the stages of execution for an MVC Web project.

Stage Details Receive first request for the application In the Global.asax file, Route objects are added to the RouteTable object. Perform routing The UrlRoutingModule module uses the first matching Route object in the RouteTable collection to create the RouteData object, which it then uses to create a RequestContext (IHttpContext) object. Create MVC request handler The MvcRouteHandler object creates an instance of the MvcHandler class and passes it the RequestContext instance. Create controller The MvcHandler object uses the RequestContext instance to identify the IControllerFactory object (typically an instance of the DefaultControllerFactory class) to create the controller instance with. Execute controller The MvcHandler instance calls the controller s Execute method. Invoke action Most controllers inherit from the Controller base class. For controllers that do so, the ControllerActionInvoker object that is associated with the controller determines which action method of the controller class to call, and then calls that method. Execute result A typical action method might receive user input, prepare the appropriate response data, and then execute the result by returning a result type. The built-in result types that can be executed include the following: ViewResult (which renders a view and is the most-often used result type), RedirectToRouteResult, RedirectResult, ContentResult, JsonResult, and EmptyResult.