In 2015 I was working on a Simple C# web framework for .NET. Back then I wanted to create an MVC framework that would allow me to run C# web applications on Linux. Back then I was using MonoDevelop to work on C# code for Mono. Today in 2021 I’m using Visual Studio Code to write C# code for .NET 5 (still on Linux). This port aims to take full advantage of the new .NET 5 platform and it’s support for Linux. I am especially interested in cross-platform support and creating single executable web applications (like Go can do with go-bindata-assetfs).

Design philosophy

I tried to sum up the goals for the project as bullet points:

  • Develop and run primarily on Linux
  • Single executable, easy to deploy
    • Views produce code that can be debugged
    • Static files are embedded.
  • Convention over configuration
    • Routing uses reflection, no exceptions
  • Simple to understand, not too much code
  • Minimal dependencies, no ASP.NET

Thankfully .NET 5 makes it really easy to achieve those goals.

Install .NET 5 on Ubuntu

On Ubuntu 20.04 you need to execute:

wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/20.04/packages-microsoft-prod.deb \
  -O packages-microsoft-prod.deb
sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb
rm packages-microsoft-prod.deb

Then install the needed packages using:

sudo apt-get update; \
  sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https && \
  sudo apt-get update && \
  sudo apt-get install -y dotnet-sdk-5.0

Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/linux-ubuntu

Now you have the dotnet command on your command line and I would recommend that you install Visual Studio Code and it’s C# extension.

How to get started

Would you like to play with this minimalistic MVC framework? First you need to clone the example project:

git clone https://github.com/maussoft/mvc-example-cs

Now you have the following directories in your project directory:

  • bin/ (ignored, where the executables are stored)
  • obj/ (ignored, where the intermediate binaries are stored)
  • tools/ (this is where the view generator task is stored)
  • Content/ (this is where the Javascript, CSS and images are stored)
  • Controllers/ (your controller classes)
  • Views/ (your views with a subdirectory for every controller)
  • Acme.Example.csproj (your project file)
  • Program.cs (the entry point of your application, with function “Main” )
  • Session.cs (the session object that is available on every action)
  • appsettings.json (the settings of the application)

Now let me show you how to add some code.

Writing the code

Our webserver uses the following session class in Session.cs:

using System.Collections.Generic;

public class Session
{
  public List<string> Names { get; set; }

  public Session()
  {
    this.Names = new List<string>();
  }
}

This Session class can hold names in a list.

Now let’s create a simple controller in Controllers/Hello.cs:

using Maussoft.Mvc;

namespace Acme.Example.Controllers
{
  public class Hello
  {
    public void World(WebContext<Session> context, string name)
    {
      context.Session.Names.Add(name);
      context.Data.Names = context.Session.Names.ToArray();
    }
  }
}

The create a Layout in Views/Layouts/Hello.aspx:

<%@ Master %>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Hello!</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <% RenderViewContent(); %>
  </body>
</html>

And a view in Views/Hello/World.aspx:

<%@ Page Inherits="Layouts.Hello" %>
<h1>Names</h1>
<ul>
  <% foreach (var name in Context.Data.Names) { %>
    <li><%= name %></li>
  <% } %>
</ul>

And then run the application using:

dotnet run

And access it on:

http://localhost:2345/Hello/World/Maurits

You will see an increasing list of names (stored in the session).

Source code: https://github.com/maussoft/mvc

Happy programming!