Where can I put custom classes in ASP.NET MVC?

Question

I have some utility functions and Pagination function. I want to create classes named Utility and Pagination for these functions respectively, so that I can use these class function in more than one controllers.

So where can I put these class in my folder structure, and how can I access then?

Answer 1

You can either create a new Folder called Helpers under the root and keep your classes physically there. I would keep my classes under a different namespace called Helpers

namespace MyProject.Helpers {   public class CustomerHelper   {         //Do your class stuff here   } } 

To accees this in my other classes (Ex : Controllers) ,I can either use the fully qualified name

var custHelper=new MyProject.Helpers.CustomerHelper();  

OR

add a Import statement at the top so that i can skip the fully qualified name

//Other existing Import statements here using MyProject.Helpers; public class RackController : Controller {   public ActionResult Index()   {      var custHelper=new CustomerHelper();       //do something with this        return View();       }  } 

If you think your Helper method can be used in another project also, You may consider to keep them physically in a separate project(of type class library). To use this in your project, Add a reference to this project and use it like what we did above (use either fully qualified name or use import statement)

Answer 2

You can put your helper classes anywhere you find logical and convenient.

Personally I create a folder Helpers off of the main project folder.

You can use them anywhere, either by fully qualifying the class name or with a using statement.

In a Razor view, you would use

@using MyProject.Helpers 

In a controller or model you would use

using MyProject.Helpers;