Question

I have a list in the controller as follows:

    public class TruckData
    {
       public string Truck{ get; set; }                        
    }


     var truckdat = (from p in KowaDataContext.tblTrucks
                     orderby p.Truck
                     select new TruckData {Truck= p.Truck});


     var trucklist = truckdat.ToList();

     ViewBag.TrckList= trucklist;

The View looks like the following:

    @foreach (Data.Rep.Controllers.TruckController.TruvckData item in ViewBag.TrckList)         
    {
     <tr>        

      <td>
         @item.Truck
      </td>
   </tr>      

   }

My question is, how can I pass the list to the view without using the class:

     public class TruckData
    {
         public string Truck{ get; set; }                        
    }

so that my list looks like the following: Notice how the reference to TruckData is gone below:

    var truckdat = (from p in KowaDataContext.tblTrucks
                       orderby p.Truck
                       select new {Truck= p.Truck});

     var trucklist = truckdat.ToList();

     ViewBag.TrckList= trucklist;

I am not sure how the foreach in the view will look like. I tried what is shown below but was giving me a problem.

  @foreach (var item in ViewBag.TrucksSelectList) 

Answer 1

No, this is not possible. You cannot pass anonymous objects to views. The reason for this is that anonymous objects are emitted as internal by the compiler. And since ASP.NET dynamically compiles views into a separate assembly they do not have access to this model.

My question is, how can I pass the list to the view without using the class:

That would be against all good practices => you need to use a view model:

var truckdat = 
  from p in KowaDataContext.tblTrucks
  orderby p.Truck
  select new TruckData { Truck = p.Truck };

ViewBag.TrckList = truckdat.ToList();

and then in the view:

@foreach (var item in (IEnumerable<TruckData>)ViewBag.TrckList) 
{
    <div>@item.Truck</div>
}

And since you have a list of strings you could probably use that as model:

var truckdat = 
  from p in KowaDataContext.tblTrucks
  orderby p.Truck
  select p.Truck;

ViewBag.TrckList = truckdat.ToList();

and then in the view:

@foreach (var item in (IEnumerable<string>)ViewBag.TrckList) 
{
    <div>@item</div>
}

I would also very strongly recommend you to get rid of ViewBag and use strongly typed view models:

public ActionResult Foo()
{
    IEnumerable<TruckData> model = 
        from p in KowaDataContext.tblTrucks
        orderby p.Truck
        select new TruckData { Truck = p.Truck };

    return View(model);
}

and then:

@model IEnumerable<TruckData>
@foreach (var item in Model)
{
    <div>@item.Truck</div>
}

And introducing a display template for the TruckData type (~/Views/Shared/DisplayTemplates/TruckData.cshtml):

@model TruckData
<div>@Model</div>

you can even get rid of the ugly and useless foreach loop in your main view:

@model IEnumerable<TruckData>
@Html.DisplayForModel()