CODEWITHSUNDEEP
model-view-controllerinterfacemethodsparametersaction
Tim Butterfield
Tim Butterfield

Reputation: 587

MVC - Interface as Controller Action parameter

I want to pass one of a number of classes that implement an interface from my view back to my controller action. I use an ActionLink in my view passing the instance to my action, but it naturally fails because MVC cannot deal with interfaces via default model binding.

So : 

<%=Html.ActionLink(flow.Source.Name, "Get", new {container=flow.Source})%>

is in a loop and each flow.Source conforms to IContainer. 

public class Flow 
{
    public virtual IContainer Source { get; private set; }
}

public interface IContainer
{
//members here
}

public class File : IContainer
{}

public class Worksheet : IContainer
{}

Basically I want to call an action method : 

public ActionResult Get(IContainer container)
{
   // Do something
}

The reason being that I need to retrieve the state of the current container passed to my action method from the database. I use NHibernate and have entities mapped on a table per entity, so have one for File and one for Worksheet for example, so need to able to decide which data access class to use. Make sense? Probably not!

Can this be done without moving towards a base class Container? Can I stick with an interface being passed to my action method and resolve the subtype instance passed in place of the interface?

Any help with this would be gratefully appreciated.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 7903

Answers (1)

Adam Tuliper
Adam Tuliper

Reputation: 30152

An interface needs 'some' concrete implementation to reference when you would call your class. I think judging by your post you are aware of this : ) With that said there is 'kinda' of an approach handled here where you just create your own model binder that has to know about (or how) to map to and create a concrete type (either directly or by dependency injection)

ASP.NET MVC - Custom Model Binder on Interface Type

Upvotes: 1

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