asp.net mvc 1.0 - how to render a partial view as a string

Question

I need to render a partial view to a string within a controller action. I have the following sample code, but the ControllerContext.ParentActionViewContext does not seem to exist in mvc 1.0

            // Get the IView of the PartialView object.
            var view = PartialView("MyPartialView").View;

            // Initialize a StringWriter for rendering the output.
            var writer = new StringWriter();

            // Do the actual rendering.
            view.Render(ControllerContext.ParentActionViewContext, writer);

Any tips greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Here's one way to achieve this. There's also a BlockRenderer in MvcContrib.

Answer 2

try this MVC v1.0 (an extension method that i use)

public static class Extensionmethods
{
    public static string RenderPartialToString(this Controller controller, string partialName)
    {
        return RenderPartialToString(controller, partialName, new object());
    }
    public static string RenderPartialToString(this Controller controller, string partialName, object model)
    {
        var vd = new ViewDataDictionary(controller.ViewData);
        var vp = new ViewPage
        {
            ViewData = vd,
            ViewContext = new ViewContext(),
            Url = new UrlHelper(controller.ControllerContext.RequestContext)
        };

        ViewEngineResult result = ViewEngines
                                  .Engines
                                  .FindPartialView(controller.ControllerContext, partialName);

        if (result.View == null)
        {
            throw new InvalidOperationException(
            string.Format("The partial view '{0}' could not be found", partialName));
        }
        var partialPath = ((WebFormView)result.View).ViewPath;

        vp.ViewData.Model = model;

        Control control = vp.LoadControl(partialPath);
        vp.Controls.Add(control);

        var sb = new StringBuilder();

        using (var sw = new StringWriter(sb))
        {
            using (var tw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw))
            {
                vp.RenderControl(tw);
            }
        }
        return sb.ToString();
    }
}

usage:

....
string htmlBlock = this.RenderPartialToString("YourPartialView", model);
return htmlBlock;

i use this in a ton of controllers with 100% success...

jim