How do I force compilation of ASP.NET MVC views?

Question

I have a Windows Azure web role that contains a web site using ASP.NET MVC. When an HTTP request arrives and a page is first loaded the view (.aspx or .cshtml) is compiled and that takes some time and so the first time a page is served it takes notable longer than later serving the same page.

I've enabled <MvcBuildViews> (described in this answer) to enforce compile-time validation of views, but that doesn't seem to have any effect on their compilation when the site is deployed and running.

Azure web roles have so-called startup tasks and also a special OnStart() method where I can place whatever warmup code, so once I know what to do adding that into the role is not a problem.

Is there a way to force compilation of all views?

Answer 1

Take a look at Precompiled Razor Views by David Ebbo

Why would you want to do that?

One reason to do this is to avoid any runtime hit when your site starts, since there is nothing left to compile at runtime. This can be significant in sites with many views.

Also, you no longer need to deploy the cshtml files at all, resulting in a smaller deployment file set.

Another cool benefit is that it gives you the ability to unit test your views, which has always been something very difficult with the standard runtime compilation model. I’ll cover that in more details in a future post.