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
To repeat from a more unknown question, take a look at MvcIntegrationTestFramework.
It makes saves you writing your own helpers to stream result and is proven to work well enough. I'd assume this would be in a test project and as a bonus you would have the other testing capabilities once you've got this setup. Main bother would probably be sorting out the dependency chain.
private static readonly string mvcAppPath =
Path.GetFullPath(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
+ "\\..\\..\\..\\MyMvcApplication");
private readonly AppHost appHost = new AppHost(mvcAppPath);
[Test]
public void Root_Url_Renders_Index_View()
{
appHost.SimulateBrowsingSession(browsingSession => {
RequestResult result = browsingSession.ProcessRequest("");
Assert.IsTrue(result.ResponseText.Contains("<!DOCTYPE html"));
});
}
To render a view to a string in the Service Layer without having to pass ControllerContext around, there is a good Rick Strahl article here http://www.codemag.com/Article/1312081 that creates a generic controller. Code summary below:
// Some Static Class
public static string RenderViewToString(ControllerContext context, string viewPath, object model = null, bool partial = false)
{
// first find the ViewEngine for this view
ViewEngineResult viewEngineResult = null;
if (partial)
viewEngineResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(context, viewPath);
else
viewEngineResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindView(context, viewPath, null);
if (viewEngineResult == null)
throw new FileNotFoundException("View cannot be found.");
// get the view and attach the model to view data
var view = viewEngineResult.View;
context.Controller.ViewData.Model = model;
string result = null;
using (var sw = new StringWriter())
{
var ctx = new ViewContext(context, view, context.Controller.ViewData, context.Controller.TempData, sw);
view.Render(ctx, sw);
result = sw.ToString();
}
return result;
}
// In the Service Class
public class GenericController : Controller
{ }
public static T CreateController<T>(RouteData routeData = null) where T : Controller, new()
{
// create a disconnected controller instance
T controller = new T();
// get context wrapper from HttpContext if available
HttpContextBase wrapper;
if (System.Web.HttpContext.Current != null)
wrapper = new HttpContextWrapper(System.Web.HttpContext.Current);
else
throw new InvalidOperationException("Cannot create Controller Context if no active HttpContext instance is available.");
if (routeData == null)
routeData = new RouteData();
// add the controller routing if not existing
if (!routeData.Values.ContainsKey("controller") &&
!routeData.Values.ContainsKey("Controller"))
routeData.Values.Add("controller", controller.GetType().Name.ToLower().Replace("controller", ""));
controller.ControllerContext = new ControllerContext(wrapper, routeData, controller);
return controller;
}
Then to render the View in the Service class:
var stringView = RenderViewToString(CreateController<GenericController>().ControllerContext, "~/Path/To/View/Location/_viewName.cshtml", theViewModel, true);
I found a new solution that renders a view to string without having to mess with the Response stream of the current HttpContext (which doesn't allow you to change the response's ContentType or other headers).
Basically, all you do is create a fake HttpContext for the view to render itself:
/// <summary>Renders a view to string.</summary>
public static string RenderViewToString(this Controller controller,
string viewName, object viewData) {
//Create memory writer
var sb = new StringBuilder();
var memWriter = new StringWriter(sb);
//Create fake http context to render the view
var fakeResponse = new HttpResponse(memWriter);
var fakeContext = new HttpContext(HttpContext.Current.Request, fakeResponse);
var fakeControllerContext = new ControllerContext(
new HttpContextWrapper(fakeContext),
controller.ControllerContext.RouteData,
controller.ControllerContext.Controller);
var oldContext = HttpContext.Current;
HttpContext.Current = fakeContext;
//Use HtmlHelper to render partial view to fake context
var html = new HtmlHelper(new ViewContext(fakeControllerContext,
new FakeView(), new ViewDataDictionary(), new TempDataDictionary()),
new ViewPage());
html.RenderPartial(viewName, viewData);
//Restore context
HttpContext.Current = oldContext;
//Flush memory and return output
memWriter.Flush();
return sb.ToString();
}
/// <summary>Fake IView implementation used to instantiate an HtmlHelper.</summary>
public class FakeView : IView {
#region IView Members
public void Render(ViewContext viewContext, System.IO.TextWriter writer) {
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
#endregion
}
This works on ASP.NET MVC 1.0, together with ContentResult, JsonResult, etc. (changing Headers on the original HttpResponse doesn't throw the "Server cannot set content type after HTTP headers have been sent" exception).
Update: in ASP.NET MVC 2.0 RC, the code changes a bit because we have to pass in the StringWriter
used to write the view into the ViewContext
:
//...
//Use HtmlHelper to render partial view to fake context
var html = new HtmlHelper(
new ViewContext(fakeControllerContext, new FakeView(),
new ViewDataDictionary(), new TempDataDictionary(), memWriter),
new ViewPage());
html.RenderPartial(viewName, viewData);
//...
I saw an implementation for MVC 3 and Razor from another website, it worked for me:
public static string RazorRender(Controller context, string DefaultAction)
{
string Cache = string.Empty;
System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
System.IO.TextWriter tw = new System.IO.StringWriter(sb);
RazorView view_ = new RazorView(context.ControllerContext, DefaultAction, null, false, null);
view_.Render(new ViewContext(context.ControllerContext, view_, new ViewDataDictionary(), new TempDataDictionary(), tw), tw);
Cache = sb.ToString();
return Cache;
}
public static string RenderRazorViewToString(string viewName, object model)
{
ViewData.Model = model;
using (var sw = new StringWriter())
{
var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(ControllerContext, viewName);
var viewContext = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, viewResult.View, ViewData, TempData, sw);
viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);
return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
}
}
public static class HtmlHelperExtensions
{
public static string RenderPartialToString(ControllerContext context, string partialViewName, ViewDataDictionary viewData, TempDataDictionary tempData)
{
ViewEngineResult result = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(context, partialViewName);
if (result.View != null)
{
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(sb))
{
using (HtmlTextWriter output = new HtmlTextWriter(sw))
{
ViewContext viewContext = new ViewContext(context, result.View, viewData, tempData, output);
result.View.Render(viewContext, output);
}
}
return sb.ToString();
}
return String.Empty;
}
}
More on Razor render- MVC3 View Render to String
Here's what I came up with, and it's working for me. I added the following method(s) to my controller base class. (You can always make these static methods somewhere else that accept a controller as a parameter I suppose)
MVC2 .ascx style
protected string RenderViewToString<T>(string viewPath, T model) {
ViewData.Model = model;
using (var writer = new StringWriter()) {
var view = new WebFormView(ControllerContext, viewPath);
var vdd = new ViewDataDictionary<T>(model);
var viewCxt = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, view, vdd,
new TempDataDictionary(), writer);
viewCxt.View.Render(viewCxt, writer);
return writer.ToString();
}
}
Razor .cshtml style
public string RenderRazorViewToString(string viewName, object model)
{
ViewData.Model = model;
using (var sw = new StringWriter())
{
var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(ControllerContext,
viewName);
var viewContext = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, viewResult.View,
ViewData, TempData, sw);
viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);
viewResult.ViewEngine.ReleaseView(ControllerContext, viewResult.View);
return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
}
}
Edit: added Razor code.
Additional tip for ASP NET CORE:
Interface:
public interface IViewRenderer
{
Task<string> RenderAsync<TModel>(Controller controller, string name, TModel model);
}
Implementation:
public class ViewRenderer : IViewRenderer
{
private readonly IRazorViewEngine viewEngine;
public ViewRenderer(IRazorViewEngine viewEngine) => this.viewEngine = viewEngine;
public async Task<string> RenderAsync<TModel>(Controller controller, string name, TModel model)
{
ViewEngineResult viewEngineResult = this.viewEngine.FindView(controller.ControllerContext, name, false);
if (!viewEngineResult.Success)
{
throw new InvalidOperationException(string.Format("Could not find view: {0}", name));
}
IView view = viewEngineResult.View;
controller.ViewData.Model = model;
await using var writer = new StringWriter();
var viewContext = new ViewContext(
controller.ControllerContext,
view,
controller.ViewData,
controller.TempData,
writer,
new HtmlHelperOptions());
await view.RenderAsync(viewContext);
return writer.ToString();
}
}
Registration in Startup.cs
...
services.AddSingleton<IViewRenderer, ViewRenderer>();
...
And usage in controller:
public MyController: Controller
{
private readonly IViewRenderer renderer;
public MyController(IViewRendere renderer) => this.renderer = renderer;
public async Task<IActionResult> MyViewTest
{
var view = await this.renderer.RenderAsync(this, "MyView", model);
return new OkObjectResult(view);
}
}