I need to deploy source ASP.NET MVC code on Azure websites, and for it to run

0
votes

This may be a terribly simple question, but....

I am using MVC3, Razor, C#, ASP.NET4.5/SQL Server 2008 and deploying to Azure Websites & SQL Azure.

I need to copy all of my source code, without compilation, from my web application ie model source, class libraries and views. All additional projects such as Entity Framework DAL projects will remain as a DLL. However I do not wish to have a web application DLL since I need to edit C# code in situ, and have the site run using this code, no doubt using the JIT compiler.

The main reason is because I am doing some integration work and the 3rd party site sends a return url back, and "Localhost" is not very accessible to the outside world, so wish to use my Azure website instead.

So can I copy my web application code as source, and if so is it a matter of copying all the C# files up and removing the web application DLL?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT

Further thoughts. Azure Websites provides a container for the Worker process to operate which hosts the Application DLL which is P-Code which is then dynamically compiled to native code. So I am not sure if one can start with a source C# file like one can with a Razor View.

EDIT2

Or do I need to make the changes on my Local machine and keep republishing to Azure Websites to test the integration? A little long winded...

1
asp.net-mvcasp.net-mvc-3asp.net-mvc-4azure

1 Answers

1
votes

MVC Sites must be Web Applications, they cannot be on the fly compiled. Sorry, there is no way around this. You must compile your code into a DLL for it to run if you want to use MVC.

The reasons for this are many, but a big one is that the "on the fly" compilation model used by ASP.NET Web Site projects does not use namespaces, and namespaces are very important to the operation of MVC.

Another issue is that MVC depends heavily on static assembly references, which is also not the case in Web Site projects.

In general, ASP.NET Web Site projects are poorly supported, have a lot of issues that make them unsuitable for larger projects, and even more unsuitable for use with more advanced frameworks.