Question

How can I return HTML in 2 or more JSON fields like this?

return Json(
new 
{
   Breadcrumbs = PartialView("Breadcrumbs/Breadcrumbs", model.Breadcrumbs),
   FolderDetail = PartialView("Detail/Folder", model.FolderDetail)
});

In this case I don’t get HTML, but JSON objects, in result.BreadCrumbs and result.FolderDetail

Answer 1

PartialView is an ActionResult that tells the system to render the partial view rather than the output HTML. Here’s the code I’m currently using to render views to a string before adding it to a JSON result:

    public static string RenderPartialToString(this Controller controller, string viewName, object model)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(viewName))
            viewName = controller.ControllerContext.RouteData.GetRequiredString("action");

        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();
        }
    }