Can a Web Api controller render a view as a string?

Question

I would like to write a Web Api controller action that would send an email depending on results. I would like to use an MVC View or Partial view with a model of data to render t

Answer 1

If you don´t want to go with the RazorEngine approach suggested in the comments, you could define a class like this:

public static class ViewUtil
{
    public static string RenderPartial(string partialName, object model)
    {
        var sw = new StringWriter();
        var httpContext = new HttpContextWrapper(HttpContext.Current);

        // point to an empty controller
        var routeData = new RouteData();
        routeData.Values.Add("controller", "EmptyController");

        var controllerContext = new ControllerContext(new RequestContext(httpContext, routeData), new EmptyController());

        var view = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(controllerContext, partialName).View;

        view.Render(new ViewContext(controllerContext, view, new ViewDataDictionary { Model = model }, new TempDataDictionary(), sw), sw);

        return sw.ToString();
    }
}

class EmptyController : Controller { }