Passing values to view in Asp.net MVC3

Question

I have two tables Date and Song. Where DateId is foreign key to Song table.

 - Date:
   DateId
   Date
 - Song:
   SongId
   DateId
   Title

Here is the function:

public ActionResult Index()
        {            
            var song = db.TopSongs;
            var model = db.Dates;
            var latestDate = model.OrderByDescending(d => d.Date).FirstOrDefault();
            return View(latestDate);
        }

I need to show: Date SongId Title in View. But return View is taking only one parameter. Is there a way to pass both table data to view?

Answer 1

There are two options:

1. Use the ViewBag

   ViewBag.song = db.TopSongs;
   ViewBag.model = db.Dates
   ViewBag.latestDate = model.OrderByDescending(d => d.Date).FirstOrDefault();
   

2. Create a new class that contains the info you need, and return that (ie, a view model).

Note that 2 is the preferred option as it allows you to maintain strong typing (the ViewBag uses a dynamic type).

Answer 2

You need to create a 'View Model';

public class ViewModel
{
    public int SongId { get; set; }
    public DateTime Date { get; set; }
    public string Title { get; set; }
    //More properties that are needed in View
}

And then populate this;

var viewModel = new List<ViewModel> { //Populate code here };

And pass this populated View Model to the View

return (viewModel);

And make a reference to this in the view itself;

@model IEnumerable<ViewModel>

And finally, display in View;

@foreach (var item in Model) {
    <tr>
        <td>
            @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Title)
        </td>
    </tr>
}

Please note that the actual properties of your view model will be different, the above code is just to show how you could possibly achieve this.