How deeply does ASP.NET Core in Action, 3e cover AddControllersWithViews?

Explains the registration, surrounding route mapping, and controller behavior, but does not detail service internals.

AddControllersWithViews

As explained in ASP.NET Core in Action, 3e

AddControllersWithViews is an ASP.NET Core service-registration method that adds MVC controller and view services to an application's dependency injection container.

AddControllersWithViews() registers the services required for MVC controllers and Razor view rendering in the ASP.NET Core dependency injection container. It prepares an application to return server-rendered HTML through controller actions. section 19.6

Register MVC services in Program.cs

WebApplicationBuilder builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args); builder.Services.AddControllersWithViews(); WebApplication app = builder.Build(); app.MapControllerRoute( name: "default", pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}"); section 19.2

Use the registration with the surrounding MVC setup:

MapControllerRoute() exposes controllers through conventional routes such as {controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}. section 19.2
Controllers group action methods, which can return View() and render conventionally located Razor views. section 19.6
The resulting MVC application can produce output that looks like a Razor Pages application while using different infrastructure. section 19.2

Listing 19.1 Program.cs for the default MVC project

WebApplicationBuilder builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
 
builder.Services.AddControllersWithViews();               #1
 
WebApplication app = builder.Build();
 
if (!app.Environment.IsDevelopment())
{
    app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");               #2
    app.UseHsts();
}
 
app.UseHttpsRedirection();
app.UseStaticFiles();
app.UseRouting();
app.UseAuthorization();
 
app.MapControllerRoute(                                   #3
    name: "default",                                      #3
    pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");   #4
 
app.Run();
#1 AddControllersWithViews adds the services for MVC controllers with Razor Views.
#2 The exception handler path differs from the default Razor Pages path of /Error.
#3 Adds all MVC controllers in your application using conventional routing
#4 Defines the default conventional route pattern

Inspect the complete default Program.cs setup, including service registration, middleware, exception handling, and conventional routing. section 19.2

How ASP.NET Core in Action, 3e covers it

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Related concepts

Razor compilerconfigures · The Razor compiler transforms Razor files containing markup and code into generated classes or output for execution by an ASP.NET Core application.
mvc frameworkconfigures · A web application framework based on the Model–View–Controller architectural pattern, in which application concerns are separated into models, views, and controllers.
dependency injection containerconfigures · A dependency injection container is software that constructs and resolves objects by supplying their configured dependencies, often managing their lifetimes.
AddControllersalternative to · AddControllers is an ASP.NET Core service-registration method that adds services required for controller-based web APIs without view-rendering services.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of ASP.NET Core in Action, 3e. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.