Custom ControllerFactory does not replace DefaultControllerFactory when there is a controller collision

Question

I have a custom controller factory (very basic implementation that is relevant to my question):

public class MyControllerFactory : DefaultControllerFactory
{
    public override IController CreateController(RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName)
    {    
        var controller = base.CreateController(requestContext, controllerName);

        return controller;
    }

    protected override System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateBehavior GetControllerSessionBehavior(RequestContext requestContext, Type controllerType)
    {
        return base.GetControllerSessionBehavior(requestContext, controllerType);
    }
}

Which is registered in global.asax like this:

protected void Application_Start()
{
    ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(typeof(MyControllerFactory));

    // other code here
}

Breakpoints set in this controller factory are hit properly when there is no conflict in resolving the controller (e.g. only one controller is found in the resolution process). However, when I have two controllers with the same name (in my case: one in an area, one not in an area) without using the namespaces constraint in the route, my controller isn't hit, and the DefaultControllerFactory takes over and throws an (expected) exception.

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My Questions

Am I registering MyControllerFactory properly? Is there some other reason that it's not getting used in the case I've outlined above?

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What I'm trying to do

I'm trying to write a ControllerFactory that automatically uses controllers that are defined in a (config-specified) area (i.e. if a conflict occurs, like above, use the area controller instead of the non-area controller). If the area doesn't contain a matching controller, fall back to the one that is not in an area.

Answer 1

You could try using Global Namespace Prioritization. You use the Add method of ControllerBuilder.Current.DefaultNamespaces to add namespaces that should be given higher priority. All the namespaces that are added are given the same priority, it doesn't matter what order you add them in, but they are given higher priority than namespaces that are not added. So you could add your config-specified namespace with this method and that should cause it to search there first. You just add it in your Application_Start, maybe after your line to register your controller factory:

ControllerBuilder.Current.DefaultNamespaces.Add("MyControllerNamespace");

You can also add a ".*" after the namespace name to have it search child namespaces as well.

You could also directly implement the IControllerFactory interface instead of extending the DefaultControllerFactory if the default implementation is getting in the way when there is a name collision.