How can I output the values in an array to a View in MVC with Razor?

Question

Task

Output the values from an IEnumerable of simple types in a view.

Conditions

I have a model, passed in by the controller, that contains an array of simple values (in this case int). I want to output it into a variable in a JavaScript block in the view.

Standards

Without using a large foreach block and iterating over each item and then figuring out the commas, output the values in such a way that is similar to the statement seen below.

Example

var packageSummaryViewModel = new PackageSummaryViewModel([1,2,3,4,5,6,7]);

Currently this is what is happening:

View.cshtml

var packageSummaryViewModel = new PackageSummaryViewModel(@sensorIds);

Output

var packageSummaryViewModel = new PackageSummaryViewModel(System.Int32[]);

Timothy Shields · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-08 02:24:25Z

7

The way I do this is to use a JSON serializer, like JSON.NET. JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation, so it's natural to use a JSON serializer to convert C#/.NET objects to Javascript objects.

@using Newtonsoft.Json
@model MyNamespace.MyObject

var myProperty = @Html.Raw(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(Model.MyProperty));

If Model.MyProperty is a List<int> containing the integers 1, 2, 3, Razor will render this as follows:

var myProperty = [1,2,3];

If Model.MyProperty is an instance of the following class

class C
{
    public string X { get; set; }
    public double Y { get; set; }
}

with X set to apple and Y set to 0.5, Razor will render this as follows:

var myProperty = {"X":"apple","Y":0.5};

The point is that this same approach works for any JSON-serializable C#/.NET object you might be passing as your model (or part of your model).

edited Jun 8, 2014 at 2:24

answered Jun 8, 2014 at 2:16

Timothy Shields

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3 Comments

CodeWarrior Over a year ago

Well then why the heck did it take me 45 minutes to drag the below solution out of a bunch of guys who purport themselves to be MVC knowledgeable?

Timothy Shields Over a year ago

@CodeWarrior This is such an extremely common operation, rendering a C#/.NET object into a JS script as a literal. I can't speak to why it took them so long - maybe they still have some things to learn. :) Your guys did end up showing you how to render an IEnumerable<int> as JSON, but their solution is poor in that it implements JSON serialization in part. What if you want to serialize an IEnumerable<string>? A custom object? A Dictionary<int, List<string>>? Clearly you should be using a general-purpose JSON serializer for this purpose.

CodeWarrior Over a year ago

Indeed.I think I am going to delete my "answer" and vote yours up.

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