Strongly Typed View in ASP.NET Core MVC

Strongly Typed View in ASP.NET Core MVC

When building web applications using ASP.NET Core MVC, you may have come across the term ‘strongly typed view’ or ‘model-bound view’. This is a powerful feature of the framework that allows you to associate a view with a specific model class, providing type safety and cleaner code.

What is a Strongly Typed View?

A strongly typed view is a view that has a specific model class associated with it. This means that the view is bound to a specific type of data, which provides type safety and helps to prevent errors in your code. When you use a strongly typed view, you can access the properties of the model class directly in your view, without the need for explicit casting or conversion.

For example, consider a scenario where you have a ‘Customer’ class in your application:

public class Customer

	{

		public int Id { get; set; }

		public string Name { get; set; }

		public string Email { get; set; }

	}

If you want to display a list of customers in your view, you could create a view that looks something like this:

<table>

	@foreach (var customer in Model)

	{

		<tr>

			<td>@customer.Id</td>

			<td>@customer.Name</td>

			<td>@customer.Email</td>

		</tr>

	}

</table>

Notice how we are able to access the properties of the ‘Customer’ class directly in the view, using the ‘@customer’ object. This is possible because the view is strongly typed to the ‘Customer’ class.

How to Create a Strongly Typed View?

To create a strongly typed view, you need to follow these steps:

  • Create a model class that represents the data you want to display in the view.

  • In the controller, create an instance of the model class and populate it with data.

  • Pass the model object to the view using the ‘View’ method, as shown in the example below:

public IActionResult Index()

	{

		var customers = new List<Customer>();

		// Populate the customers list with data



		return View(customers);

	}

In this example, we create a list of ‘Customer’ objects and pass it to the ‘Index’ view using the ‘View’ method. The view is then strongly typed to the ‘List<Customer>’ class, allowing us to use ‘@customer’ to access the properties of each customer object.

Benefits of Using Strongly Typed Views

There are several benefits to using strongly typed views:

  • Type safety: By associating a view with a specific model class, you can ensure that the data passed to the view is of the correct type, reducing the risk of runtime errors.

  • Cleaner code: By using ‘@model’ and ‘@foreach (var item in Model)’ statements, you can access the properties of the model class directly in your view, making the code cleaner and easier to read.

  • Maintainability: By separating the model, view, and controller logic, you can make your code more maintainable and easier to update in the future.

FAQs

Q: Can I use a strongly typed view without a model class?

No, a strongly typed view must be associated with a model class. If you don’t have a model class, you can create one or use one of the built-in model classes provided by ASP.NET Core.

Q: Do I need to use a strongly typed view for all views in my application?

No, you don’t need to use strongly typed views for all views in your application. You can use them only for views that require a specific type of data.

Q: Can I use ViewData and ViewBag with a strongly typed view?

Yes, you can use ViewData and ViewBag to pass additional data to a strongly typed view. However, it’s recommended to use the model class to pass data to the view whenever possible.

Q: Can I use a different name for the model object in my view?

Yes, you can use a different name for the model object in your view by specifying it in the ‘@model’ directive, as shown in the example below:

@model List<Customer>



	<table>

	@foreach (var c in Model)

	{

		<tr>

			<td>@c.Id</td>

			<td>@c.Name</td>

			<td>@c.Email</td>

		</tr>

	}

	</table>

In this example, we specify ‘@model List<Customer>’ to use ‘List<Customer>’ as the name for the model object in the view.


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