Problem:
I need to render a Razor Page partial to a string.
Why I want this:
I want to create a controller action that responds with JSON containing a partial view and other optional parameters.
Attempts:
I am familiar with the following example that renders a View to a string: https://github.com/aspnet/Entropy/blob/dev/samples/Mvc.RenderViewToString/RazorViewToStringRenderer.cs
However, it is not compatible with Pages, as it only searches in the Views directory, so even if I give it an absolute path to the partial it tries to locate my _Layout.cshtml (which it shouldn't even do!) and fails to find it.
I have tried to modify it so it renders pages, but I end up getting a NullReferenceException for ViewData in my partial when attempting to render it. I suspect it has to do with NullView, but I have no idea what to put there instead (the constructor for RazorView requires many objects that I don't know how to get correctly).
The code:
// Copyright (c) .NET Foundation. All rights reserved.
// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
// Modified by OronDF343: Uses pages instead of views.
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Abstractions;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ModelBinding;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Razor;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Rendering;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ViewFeatures;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ViewFeatures.Internal;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Routing;
namespace TestAspNetCore.Services
{
public class RazorPageToStringRenderer
{
private readonly IRazorViewEngine _viewEngine;
private readonly ITempDataProvider _tempDataProvider;
private readonly IServiceProvider _serviceProvider;
public RazorPageToStringRenderer(
IRazorViewEngine viewEngine,
ITempDataProvider tempDataProvider,
IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
{
_viewEngine = viewEngine;
_tempDataProvider = tempDataProvider;
_serviceProvider = serviceProvider;
}
public async Task<string> RenderPageToStringAsync<TModel>(string viewName, TModel model)
{
var actionContext = GetActionContext();
var page = FindPage(actionContext, viewName);
using (var output = new StringWriter())
{
var viewContext = new ViewContext(actionContext,
new NullView(),
new ViewDataDictionary<TModel>(new EmptyModelMetadataProvider(),
new ModelStateDictionary())
{
Model = model
},
new TempDataDictionary(actionContext.HttpContext,
_tempDataProvider),
output,
new HtmlHelperOptions());
page.ViewContext = viewContext;
await page.ExecuteAsync();
return output.ToString();
}
}
private IRazorPage FindPage(ActionContext actionContext, string pageName)
{
var getPageResult = _viewEngine.GetPage(executingFilePath: null, pagePath: pageName);
if (getPageResult.Page != null)
{
return getPageResult.Page;
}
var findPageResult = _viewEngine.FindPage(actionContext, pageName);
if (findPageResult.Page != null)
{
return findPageResult.Page;
}
var searchedLocations = getPageResult.SearchedLocations.Concat(findPageResult.SearchedLocations);
var errorMessage = string.Join(
Environment.NewLine,
new[] { $"Unable to find page '{pageName}'. The following locations were searched:" }.Concat(searchedLocations));
throw new InvalidOperationException(errorMessage);
}
private ActionContext GetActionContext()
{
var httpContext = new DefaultHttpContext { RequestServices = _serviceProvider };
return new ActionContext(httpContext, new RouteData(), new ActionDescriptor());
}
}
}