How ViewBag in ASP.NET MVC works

Question

How does the ASP.NET MVC's ViewBag work? MSDN says it is just an Object, which intrigues me, how does "Magic" properties such as ViewBag.Foo and magic strings ViewBag["Hello"] actually work?

Also, how can I make one and use it in my ASP.NET WebForms app?

Examples would be really appreciated!

Answer 1

ViewBag is of type dynamic but, is internally an System.Dynamic.ExpandoObject()

It is declared like this:

dynamic ViewBag = new System.Dynamic.ExpandoObject();

which is why you can do :

ViewBag.Foo = "Bar";

A Sample Expander Object Code:

public class ExpanderObject : DynamicObject, IDynamicMetaObjectProvider {     public Dictionary<string, object> objectDictionary;      public ExpanderObject()     {         objectDictionary = new Dictionary<string, object>();     }     public override bool TryGetMember(GetMemberBinder binder, out object result)     {         object val;         if (objectDictionary.TryGetValue(binder.Name, out val))         {             result = val;             return true;         }         result = null;         return false;     }      public override bool TrySetMember(SetMemberBinder binder, object value)     {         try         {             objectDictionary[binder.Name] = value;             return true;         }         catch (Exception ex)         {             return false;         }     } } 

Answer 2

It's a dynamic object, meaning you can add properties to it in the controller, and read them later in the view, because you are essentially creating the object as you do, a feature of the dynamic type. See this MSDN article on dynamics. See this article on it's usage in relation to MVC.

If you wanted to use this for web forms, add a dynamic property to a base page class like so:

public class BasePage : Page {      public dynamic ViewBagProperty     {         get;         set;     } } 

Have all of your pages inherit from this. You should be able to, in your ASP.NET markup, do:

<%= ViewBagProperty.X %> 

That should work. If not, there are ways to work around it.