Render Full View as String in ASP.NET

Question

I have found this code to render a partial view as a string:

public static string RenderPartialToString(string controlName, object viewData)
    {
        ViewPage viewPage = new ViewPage() { ViewContext = new ViewContext() };

        viewPage.ViewData = new ViewDataDictionary(viewData);
        viewPage.Controls.Add(viewPage.LoadControl(controlName));

        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(sb))
        {
            using (HtmlTextWriter tw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw))
            {
                viewPage.RenderControl(tw);
            }
        }

        return sb.ToString();
    }

However I need to render a full view as a string (which contains ViewData).

What is the best way to do this?

possible duplicate with http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9243433/how-to-render-a-razor-view-to-a-string-in-asp-net-mvc-3 — Ignacio Laborde, Jun 10 '14 at 15:06

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 10 '14 at 16:15

Rendering a full view as string:

    private string RenderViewToString(string viewName, object model=null)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(viewName))
            viewName = ControllerContext.RouteData.GetRequiredString("action");

        if (model != null)
            ViewData.Model = model;

        // you can pass in additional arguments to this function 
        // and manipulate the ViewData further if you need to

        using (var sw = new StringWriter())
        {
            var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindView(ControllerContext, viewName, null);
            var viewContext = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, viewResult.View, ViewData, TempData, sw);
            viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);

            return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
        }
    }

Use like this, if you want to render a page without model:

var text = RenderViewToString("Index");

and like this, if you want to render a page with a model

var text = RenderViewToString("OtherPage", model);

Render Full View as String in ASP.NET

1 Answers1