Question

I am doing big project in Web Forms and entered a big mess of code(can be solved with little refactoring), so I decided to take a peek at mvc, seems like everyone favores it over web forms.

I have dll file with all LINQ to SQL classes and methods for existing sql db and I started teaching myself by reacreating this project in mvc.I first recreated my homepage from webforms to razor, so far so good and I recreated one of the user controls to partial view and looped it.
Partial view is strongly typed with one of L2S class, the thing is there is some raw data in it.Like for example My model for partial view is my L2S class PostDetails: it consist od some data ready from output like: Title, Permalink, ViewsNumber etc. but it also cointains some raw data like UserId(I need to call method from dll to get username),DateTimeCreated(on which I also need to call method to get time difference), In webforms I would do this in codebehind but I’m not sure where to do it in mvc, maybe in controller and pass it in ViewData.I am also asking this for future, not just this case.

Answer 1

You should perform those actions in the controller. The controller is exactly what it sounds like, it controls the data flow between the model and the view.

Here is an example using your PostDetails:

PostDetailsModel

String Title {get;set;}
String Permalink {get;set;}
Int ViewNumber {get;set}
Int UserId {get;set}
DateTime DateTimeCreated {get;set;}

GetDetailsView: this will be requested by your user, and will be a visual representation of the PostDetailsModel (however you want to format that). When this View is requested, a call is made to your controller….

PostDetailsController

//This method will (by default) come from calling [BASEURL]/PostDetails/GetDetails
public ActionResult GetDetails()
{
    var details = new PostDetailsModel();
    details.UserId = GetUserId();
    details.ViewNumber = GetViewNumber();
    ....
    //By default this looks for a view in the PostDetails folder 
    //by the name of your method (GetDetails)
    return View(details);
}

Notice how the controller is the router between the model and the view, basically. A note, however, it would be better to fill your model from methods contained within some sort of business layer (however you implement that). Something like var details = BL.GetDetails();

Also, when the user makes requests to save data, then you can do that with another method that takes the data (whether it be the PostDetailsModel or an int or…) and does whatever it needs to do, then it can redirect back to the display action (or wherever you need it to go)

There is a wealth of information on MVC with a simple google search. Here is Microsoft’s overview, but the wikipedia article is very succinct if you just want the basics