ASP.NET MVC - Combine Json result with ViewResult

Question

Can I return a Json result that contains also a rendered view?

I need it to return the new ID of a submitted form along with its HTML and some other properties.

Also that can be helpful when I need to return two (or more) view results from one action inside a Json object.

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can also render a PartialViewResult to a string, and then pass this string via JSON to your view, rendering it in your page using jQuery.

You can see that in this post: http://www.atlanticbt.com/blog/asp-net-mvc-using-ajax-json-and-partialviews/.

I've created an extension to make it easier:

public static class MvcHelpers {     public static string RenderPartialView(this Controller controller, string viewName, object model)     {         if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(viewName))             viewName = controller.ControllerContext.RouteData.GetRequiredString("action");          controller.ViewData.Model = model;         using (var sw = new StringWriter())         {             ViewEngineResult 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);              return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();         }     } } 

In my controller I call it as follows:

const string msg = "Item succesfully updated!"; return new JsonResult            {                Data = new                           {                               success = true,                                message = msg,                               view = this.RenderPartialView("ProductItemForm", model)                           },                JsonRequestBehavior = JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet            }; 

Where "this" is the controller in the case, "ProductItemForm" is my view and "model" is my productItem object :)

Hope this helps ;)