How to render view to string in ASP.NET MVC4 Api controller

Question

ASP.NET MVC4 Web API controller should return Razor view as html in json result property.

I tried controller

public class TestController : ApiController
{
    public HttpResponseMessage Get()
    {
        var body = RenderViewToString<object>("~/Views/Broneeri/Schedule.cshtml", new object() );
        return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, new { content = body } );
    }

    string RenderViewToString<T>(string viewName, T model)
    {
        ViewDataDictionary ViewData = new ViewDataDictionary(model);
        TempDataDictionary TempData = new TempDataDictionary();
        ControllerContext controllerContext = new System.Web.Mvc.ControllerContext();
        controllerContext.RouteData = new RouteData();

        controllerContext.RouteData.Values.Add("controller", "Schedule");
        using (var sw = new StringWriter())
        {
            var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(controllerContext, viewName);
            var viewContext = new ViewContext(controllerContext, viewResult.View, ViewData,          
                       TempData, sw);
            viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);
            viewResult.ViewEngine.ReleaseView(controllerContext, viewResult.View);
            return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
        }
    }
 }

but I got a strange exception

System.NotImplementedException was unhandled by user code
  HResult=-2147467263
  Message=The method or operation is not implemented.
  Source=System.Web
  StackTrace:
       at System.Web.HttpContextBase.get_Items()
       at System.Web.Mvc.VirtualPathProviderViewEngine.GetPath(ControllerContext controllerContext, String[] locations, String[] areaLocations, String locationsPropertyName, String name, String controllerName, String cacheKeyPrefix, Boolean useCache, String[]& searchedLocations)
       at System.Web.Mvc.VirtualPathProviderViewEngine.FindPartialView(ControllerContext controllerContext, String partialViewName, Boolean useCache)
       at System.Web.Mvc.ViewEngineCollection.Find(Func`2 lookup, Boolean trackSearchedPaths)
       at System.Web.Mvc.ViewEngineCollection.Find(Func`2 cacheLocator, Func`2 locator)
...

at line

var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(controllerContext, viewName);

How to return HTML content from view in ASP.NET 4 Web API controller?

WebAPI was meant for REST style operations. If you are returning HTML, why not just use a normal controller action and a partial view? — iCollect.it Ltd
– iCollect.it Ltd, Commented Nov 10, 2014 at 11:59
WebAPI method returns json data. One property of this data contains response data html format. This content is added to page as html to avoid full page refresh. Thus I need to generate html from WebAPI — Andrus
– Andrus, Commented Nov 10, 2014 at 19:40
I posted related question in stackoverflow.com/questions/26854342/… This contains answer which does not work in Mono — Andrus
– Andrus, Commented Nov 10, 2014 at 22:45

Andrei · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-15 18:09:26Z

1

You need to Install-Package RazorEngine using your NuGet console. Here is code that worked for me:

using RazorEngine;
using RazorEngine.Templating;

string razorTemplate = "Hello @Model!";
string html = Engine.Razor.RunCompile(
    razorTemplate, 
    "uniqueTemplateKey", // Guid.NewGuid().ToString() for example
    modelType: typeof(string), 
    model: "Lorem Ipsum");

Hope it helps!

answered Dec 15, 2015 at 18:09

Andrei

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3 Comments

Dimskiy Over a year ago

NuGet package RazorEngine does not belong to Mircrosoft and is not a part of ASP.NET. Although this answer should work for rendering a Razor view into a string, I think this should still be mentioned.

bbrinck Over a year ago

@Dimskiy Do you know if there is a similar package from Microsoft to be used inside a .NET Core Api ?

Andrei Over a year ago

@bbrinck I'm using RazorLight these days. It's not great but gets the job done...

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