How do you convert a Razor view to a string?

Question

I would like to use my Razor view as some kind of template for sending emails, so I would like to "save" my template in a view, read it into controller as a string, do some necessary replacements, and then send it.

I have solution that works: my template is hosted somewhere as an HTML page, but I would like to put it into my application (i.e. in my view). I don't know how to read a view as a string in my controller.

Answer 1

I use the following. Put it on your base controller if you have one, that way you can access it in all controllers.

public static string RenderPartialToString(Controller controller, string viewName, object model)
{
    controller.ViewData.Model = model;

    using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter())
    {
        ViewEngineResult viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(controller.ControllerContext, viewName);
        ViewContext viewContext = new ViewContext(controller.ControllerContext, viewResult.View, controller.ViewData, controller.TempData, sw);
        viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);

        return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
    }
}

Answer 2

Take a look at the RazorEngine library, which does exactly what you want. I've used it before for email templates, and it works great.

You can just do something like this:

// Read in your template from anywhere (database, file system, etc.)
var bodyTemplate = GetEmailBodyTemplate();

// Substitute variables using Razor
var model = new { Name = "John Doe", OtherVar = "Hello!" };
var emailBody = Razor.Parse(bodytemplate, model);

// Send email
SendEmail(address, emailBody);