MVC Razor dynamic model, 'object' does not

Question

Using MVC 3 with Razor view engine. I have this View:

@model dynamic
@{
    var products = (List<ListItemBaseModel>)Model.Products;
    var threshold = (int)(Model.Threshold ?? 1);
    var id = Guid.NewGuid().ToString();
}

It is called from another view using this code:

@Html.Partial("PartialViewName", new { Products = Model, Threshold = 5 })

In both Views, when i debug them and watch Model, it seems to contain the correct object. When i execute the code i get an error on the "var products =" line saying:

'object' does not contain a definition for 'Products'

Can anyone explain to me why i get that error? Again, when i watch the Model object in debugging mode it looks all right (having 2 properties: Products and Threshold)

Answer 1

I worked around this issue by using a Dictionary.

 @Html.Partial("_Partial", new Dictionary<string, string> { { "Key1", "Val1" }, { "Key2", "Val2" }, { "Key3", "Val3" } });

Answer 2

Instead of using the dynamic Model type within the partial view.

You can call the anonymous object attributes using @ViewData.Eval("foo") instead of @Model.foo.

Then you can remove @Model dynamic from the view.

I came across this issue recently when passing some attributes between views for the Facebook Social Comments Integration. Example code:

Html.RenderPartial(@"Layouts/Partials/_Comments", new {currentUrl = Model.CurrentPage.GetAbsoluteUrl(), commentCount = 5 });

Then in my view I just had this div:

<div class="fb-comments" data-href="@ViewData.Eval("currentUrl")" data-numposts="@ViewData.Eval("commentCount")" data-width="100%"></div>

Answer 3

Add the following class anywhere in your solution (use System namespace, so its ready to use without having to add any references) -

    namespace System
    {
        public static class ExpandoHelper
        {
            public static ExpandoObject ToExpando(this object anonymousObject)
            {
                IDictionary<string, object> anonymousDictionary = HtmlHelper.AnonymousObjectToHtmlAttributes(anonymousObject);
                IDictionary<string, object> expando = new ExpandoObject();
                foreach (var item in anonymousDictionary)
                    expando.Add(item);
                return (ExpandoObject)expando;
            }

        }
    }

When you send the model to the view, convert it to Expando :

    return View(new {x=4, y=6}.ToExpando());

Answer 4

To use dynamic type you need to reference Microsoft.CSharp assembly

Answer 5

On .NET 4.0 Anonymous types can easily be converted to ExpandoObjects and thus all the problems are fixed with the overhead of the conversion itself. Check out here

Answer 6

i am not sure that you are getting this error because you are not implementing the work-around. i got the same error in a partial view. the solution was just to clean the build and rebuild it. if the syntax is correct, the code should work, but the razor engine may not be updating the code changes properly.