Is there a way to process an MVC view (aspx file) from a non-web application?

Question

I have a background service running which sends out emails to users of my website. I would like to write the email templates as MVC views, to keep things consistent (so tha

Answer 1

Ended up answering my own question :)

public class AspHost : MarshalByRefObject
{
    public string _VirtualDir;
    public string _PhysicalDir;

    public string ViewToString(string aspx, Dictionary viewData, T model)
    {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(sb))
        {
            using (HtmlTextWriter tw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw))
            {
                var workerRequest = new SimpleWorkerRequest(aspx, "", tw);
                HttpContext.Current = new HttpContext(workerRequest);

                ViewDataDictionary viewDataDictionary = new ViewDataDictionary(model);
                foreach (KeyValuePair pair in viewData)
                {
                    viewDataDictionary.Add(pair.Key, pair.Value);
                }

                object view = BuildManager.CreateInstanceFromVirtualPath(aspx, typeof(object));

                ViewPage viewPage = view as ViewPage;
                if (viewPage != null)
                {
                    viewPage.ViewData = viewDataDictionary;
                }
                else
                {
                    ViewUserControl viewUserControl = view as ViewUserControl;
                    if (viewUserControl != null)
                    {
                        viewPage = new ViewPage();
                        viewPage.Controls.Add(viewUserControl);
                    }
                }

                if (viewPage != null)
                {
                    HttpContext.Current.Server.Execute(viewPage, tw, true);

                    return sb.ToString();
                }

                throw new InvalidOperationException();
            }
        }
    }

    public static AspHost SetupFakeHttpContext(string physicalDir, string virtualDir)
    {
        return (AspHost)ApplicationHost.CreateApplicationHost(
            typeof(AspHost), virtualDir, physicalDir);
    }
}

Then, to render a file:

var host = AspHost.SetupFakeHttpContext("Path/To/Your/MvcApplication", "/");
var viewData = new ViewDataDictionary(){ Model = myModel };
String rendered = host.ViewToString("~/Views/MyView.aspx", new Dictionary(viewData), viewData.Model);