MVC3 - Passing data beyond the model to Partial view

Question

Is there a way to pass a piece of extra data along with a model to a Partial view?

E.G.

@Html.Partial("_SomeTable", (List<CustomTable>)ViewBag.Table);

Is what I have now. Can I add something else without changing my Model?

@Html.Partial("_SomeTable", (List<CustomTable>)ViewBag.Table, "TemporaryTable");

I see ViewDataDictionary as a param. I am not sure what this object does or if this meets my need.

Answer 1

ViewDataDictionary can be used to replace the ViewData dictionary in the partial view... If you don't pass a ViewDataDictionary parameter then the parial's viewdata is the same as the parents.

An example of how to use it in the parent is:

@Html.Partial("_SomeTable", (List<CustomTable>)ViewBag.Table, new ViewDataDictionary {{ "Key", obj }}); 

Then within the partial you can access this obj as follows:

@{ var obj = ViewData["key"]; } 

A completely different approach woud be to use the Tuple class to group both the original model and extra data together as follows:

@Html.Partial("_SomeTable", Tuple.Create<List<CustomTable>, string>((List<CustomTable>)ViewBag.Table, "Extra data")); 

The model type for the partial would then be:

@model Tuple<List<CustomTable>, string> 

Model.Item1 gives the List object and Model.Item2 gives the string