Initialization

This document provides an introduction to the initialization system in the EPiServer platform. The initialization feature is used both by EPiServer CMS and EPiServer Commerce, as well as third-party and customized modules used with EPiServer products. You can develop your own initialization module.

How it works

The initialization system consists of the following:

• A discovery mechanism to determine which modules should be part of the initialization process.
• A dependency sorting algorithm that decides the order of execution.
• An execution engine that will execute the modules.
• Handling of re-execution of initialization modules (by hooking into ASP.NET) in the occurence of exceptions during startup.
• The namespace EPiServer.Framework.Initialization which resides in the assembly EPiServer.Framework.

Refer to the Initialization system section of the EPiServer Framework SDK for more detailed information.

Sample initialization module

Here is a sample initialization module which takes a dependency to the EPiServer.Commerce.Initialization.InitializationModule and registers catalog content routes.

using System.Web.Routing;
using EPiServer.Framework;
using EPiServer.Commerce.Routing;
using EPiServer.Framework.Initialization;

namespace CodeSamples.EPiServer.Commerce.Catalog
{
    [ModuleDependency(typeof(global::EPiServer.Commerce.Initialization.InitializationModule))]
    public class RegisterRoutingModuleSample : IInitializableModule
    {
        public void Initialize(InitializationEngine context)
        {
            MapRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
        }

        private static void MapRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            CatalogRouteHelper.MapDefaultHierarchialRouter(routes, true);
        }

        public void Uninitialize(InitializationEngine context) { /*uninitialize*/}

        public void Preload(string[] parameters) { }
    }
}

See also

• Initialization system section in the EPiServer CMS SDK.
• Creating an initialization module section in the EPiServer CMS SDK.