Question

I am in the process of writing a web app that includes a reporting form. This form contains a number of radio buttons that allow the user to specify the return data.
There are about 6 different return data ‘formats’, and each of those has two variations – html data or JSON data for rendering to a chart.

I have begun coding it up and already my form post action method feels wrong.
I basically have a check on the requested data format and return it as needed. Each return type requires its own partial view / json object so there is little room for reusing code.

It feels like each one should have its own action method. Having the form post to different locations based on a radio button choice also feels wrong though.

Switching on report type and then redirecting to the appropriate action in the controller also feels like its not quite right.

Am I approaching this in the wrong way? As it currently stands my controller action contains a lot of code and a lot of logic…

Hope my query makes sense.

Thanks

Answer 1

I don’t think there is anything wrong with your approach. To maximize reuse you could:

• include reusable templates inside your views
• make sure the business/data layer code is the same everywhere (where possible)

I suppose the views you need to return actually are different for each combination of options so whatever approach you take, you are stuck with that.

I wouldn’t opt for the client-side approach. You then have code on both the server and the client that has to be updated whenever you change anything. I would keep the code that receives a set of options and determines what to do with them in one place.