Custom IHttpControllerActivator for MvcControllers

Question

Is there any way to register a custom IHttpControllerActivator for my Mvc controllers registered in simple injector, in a similar fashion to what can be done with Web API?

As soon as I run DependencyResolver.SetResolver(new SimpleInjectorDependencyResolver(container));, simple injector hooks in to my third party controllers as well, which I would like to avoid.

Answer 1

Based on Steven's suggestions in the comments, I came up with the following:

public class MvcControllerFactory : DefaultControllerFactory
{
    private readonly Container _container;
    private readonly IControllerFactory _original;

    public MvcControllerFactory(
        Container container, IControllerFactory original)
    {
        _container = container;
        _original = original;
    }

    protected override IController GetControllerInstance(
        RequestContext requestContext, Type controllerType)
    {
        if (controllerType == null)
        {
            return null;
        }

        if (controllerType == typeof(MyMvcController))
        {
            return (IController)_container.GetInstance(controllerType);
        }

        var controllerName = requestContext.RouteData.GetRequiredString("controller");
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(controllerName))
        {
            return _original.CreateController(requestContext, controllerName);
        }

        return (IController) Activator.CreateInstance(controllerType);
    }
}

In my app start:

var original = ControllerBuilder.Current.GetControllerFactory();
var controllerFactory = new MvcControllerFactory(container, original);
ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(controllerFactory);