ASP.NET MVC 3 and App_Code folder

Question

In ASP.NET Webform, App_Code is standard folder to putting code and using it at run-time.But I think this folder is kind of different in ASP.NET MVC, my question is:

• where should I put my code ( Extension methods , Helpers , ... ) in ASP.NET MVC. When I store code in App_Code folder, I can't use theme in controller but they work fine in views.

• About Entity Framework, the same question, where should I put edmx and tt files. I'm not using Code-First

Update:

After some search, finally I created a new Class Library project in my solution, code is available in all controllers and views. I still don't know why the code in App_Code is not available in controller

Answer 1

I had the same issue, my class Utility.cs was not recognized inside my MVC project. I changed the Build Action "Content" to "Compile" and that solved my problem. Hope that helps.

Answer 2

App_Code is necessary in Web Site projects because it has a special meaning. It means "Don't serve these files to a web browser". In ASP.NET MVC, files are not directly served to the browser in most cases, so App_Code is not necessary. You can place code files whereever you want, in any folder you want because these files are compiled into a DLL and not typically published to the website itself.

Using a stand-alone library is also a fine solution.