How to render an ASP.NET MVC view as a string?

Question

I want to output two different views (one as a string that will be sent as an email), and the other the page displayed to a user.

Is this possible in ASP.NET MVC bet

Answer 1

you are get the view in string using this way

protected string RenderPartialViewToString(string viewName, object model)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(viewName))
        viewName = ControllerContext.RouteData.GetRequiredString("action");

    if (model != null)
        ViewData.Model = model;

    using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter())
    {
        ViewEngineResult viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(ControllerContext, viewName);
        ViewContext viewContext = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, viewResult.View, ViewData, TempData, sw);
        viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);

        return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
    }
}

We are call this method in two way

string strView = RenderPartialViewToString("~/Views/Shared/_Header.cshtml", null)

OR

var model = new Person()
string strView = RenderPartialViewToString("~/Views/Shared/_Header.cshtml", model)

Answer 2

This article describes how to render a View to a string in different scenarios:

1. MVC Controller calling another of its own ActionMethods
2. MVC Controller calling an ActionMethod of another MVC Controller
3. WebAPI Controller calling an ActionMethod of an MVC Controller

The solution/code is provided as a class called ViewRenderer. It is part of Rick Stahl's WestwindToolkit at GitHub.

Usage (3. - WebAPI example):

string html = ViewRenderer.RenderView("~/Areas/ReportDetail/Views/ReportDetail/Index.cshtml", ReportVM.Create(id));

Answer 3

This answer is not on my way . This is originally from https://stackoverflow.com/a/2759898/2318354 but here I have show the way to use it with "Static" Keyword to make it common for all Controllers .

For that you have to make static class in class file . (Suppose your Class File Name is Utils.cs )

This example is For Razor.

Utils.cs

public static class RazorViewToString
{
    public static string RenderRazorViewToString(this Controller controller, string viewName, object model)
    {
        controller.ViewData.Model = model;
        using (var sw = new StringWriter())
        {
            var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(controller.ControllerContext, viewName);
            var viewContext = new ViewContext(controller.ControllerContext, viewResult.View, controller.ViewData, controller.TempData, sw);
            viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);
            viewResult.ViewEngine.ReleaseView(controller.ControllerContext, viewResult.View);
            return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
        }
    }
}

Now you can call this class from your controller by adding NameSpace in your Controller File as following way by passing "this" as parameter to Controller.

string result = RazorViewToString.RenderRazorViewToString(this ,"ViewName", model);

As suggestion given by @Sergey this extension method can also call from cotroller as given below

string result = this.RenderRazorViewToString("ViewName", model);

I hope this will be useful to you make code clean and neat.

Answer 4

If you want to forgo MVC entirely, thereby avoiding all the HttpContext mess...

using RazorEngine;
using RazorEngine.Templating; // For extension methods.

string razorText = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(razorTemplateFileLocation);
string emailBody = Engine.Razor.RunCompile(razorText, "templateKey", typeof(Model), model);

This uses the awesome open source Razor Engine here: https://github.com/Antaris/RazorEngine

Answer 5

Quick tip

For a strongly typed Model just add it to the ViewData.Model property before passing to RenderViewToString. e.g

this.ViewData.Model = new OrderResultEmailViewModel(order);
string myString = RenderViewToString(this.ControllerContext, "~/Views/Order/OrderResultEmail.aspx", "~/Views/Shared/Site.Master", this.ViewData, this.TempData);

Answer 6

Here is a class I wrote to do this for ASP.NETCore RC2. I use it so I can generate html email using Razor.

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Abstractions;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ModelBinding;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Rendering;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ViewEngines;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ViewFeatures;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Routing;
using System.IO;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace cloudscribe.Web.Common.Razor
{
    /// <summary>
    /// the goal of this class is to provide an easy way to produce an html string using 
    /// Razor templates and models, for use in generating html email.
    /// </summary>
    public class ViewRenderer
    {
        public ViewRenderer(
            ICompositeViewEngine viewEngine,
            ITempDataProvider tempDataProvider,
            IHttpContextAccessor contextAccesor)
        {
            this.viewEngine = viewEngine;
            this.tempDataProvider = tempDataProvider;
            this.contextAccesor = contextAccesor;
        }

        private ICompositeViewEngine viewEngine;
        private ITempDataProvider tempDataProvider;
        private IHttpContextAccessor contextAccesor;

        public async Task<string> RenderViewAsString<TModel>(string viewName, TModel model)
        {

            var viewData = new ViewDataDictionary<TModel>(
                        metadataProvider: new EmptyModelMetadataProvider(),
                        modelState: new ModelStateDictionary())
            {
                Model = model
            };

            var actionContext = new ActionContext(contextAccesor.HttpContext, new RouteData(), new ActionDescriptor());
            var tempData = new TempDataDictionary(contextAccesor.HttpContext, tempDataProvider);

            using (StringWriter output = new StringWriter())
            {

                ViewEngineResult viewResult = viewEngine.FindView(actionContext, viewName, true);

                ViewContext viewContext = new ViewContext(
                    actionContext,
                    viewResult.View,
                    viewData,
                    tempData,
                    output,
                    new HtmlHelperOptions()
                );

                await viewResult.View.RenderAsync(viewContext);

                return output.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
            }
        }
    }
}