Question

I have an ASP.NET MVC3 project.

I want to insert some <td>‘s in one table <tr>. These <td>‘s contain one <div> each. These comes from a switch() which is in a partialView and renders into another View (where is the <tr> which could contain multiple <td>‘s).

This is the partialView:

@foreach (var item in Model)
{
   switch (item.PitlaneId)
       {
           case 1:
                   <td id=a>
                       <div class="drag">
                           Name: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Name) <br />
                           Constrainted: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Constrainted) <br />
                       </div>
                   </td>
           break;

           case 2:
                   <td id=b>
                       <div class="drag">
                           Name: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Name) <br />
                           Constrainted: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Constrainted) <br />
                       </div>
                   </td>
           break;

           case 3:
                   <td id=c>
                       <div class="drag">
                              Name: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Name) <br />
                              Constrainted: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Constrainted) <br />
                          </div>
                   </td>
           break;

           default: break;
       }
}

And this partialView renders here:

<table title="test" id="testTableID">
   <colgroup> @foreach (var item in Model){<col width="300" />} </colgroup>
   <tbody>
      <tr>
         @{Html.RenderAction("Tasks"); }  @* <--- Here it renders*@
      </tr>
   </tbody>
</table>

The PROBLEM appears when switch() goes to the same case multiple times. If I have PitlaneId in this order: 1,2,2,3; It will create 4 <td>‘s in my table. In this case I should have only 3 <td>‘s and the two <div>‘s with the same PitlaneId=2 should be inside the same <td>. I mean <td>‘s with the same id should merge together. Same situation when PitlaneId comes in this order: 1,2,3,2.

Answer 1

This is the only way I could make it work. It seems smelly, but it provides the order of elements you specified.

@Html.Raw("<table><tr><th>ID 1</th><th>ID 2</th><th>ID 3</th></tr><tr>")

@foreach (int id in Model.OrderBy(p => p.PitlaneID)
    .Select(p => p.PitlaneID).Distinct())
{ 
    switch(id)
    {
        case 1:  
            @:<td id="a">
            break;
        case 2:  
            @:<td id="b">
            break;
        case 3:  
            @:<td id="c">
            break;
        default: break;
    }

    foreach (var item in Model.Where(p => p.ID == id))
    { 
        <div class="drag">
            Name: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Name) <br />
            Constrainted: @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Constrainted) <br />
        </div>
    }

    Html.Raw("</td>");
}

@Html.Raw("</tr></table>")