Question

I’m trying to do some sort of conditional statement to calculate a value. To mock my data I am assigning the value in my controller (temporarily) to see how my UI is coming along. I can perform the calculation in a function block in the view, but it’s lengthy and doesn’t belong there. So, I am trying now to do the calculation in a model (Calculations.cs).

The code for the calculation is working in that a value is being passed, except that my condition is failing and passing the default value of 0 when it should be passing another value based on my mocked value in the controller.

Here is the Calculations.cs

public class Calculations
{
    PriceQuote price = new PriceQuote();
    StepFilingInformation filing = new StepFilingInformation();
    public decimal Chapter7Calculation
    {
        get
        {
            return
                price.priceChapter7
                +
                ((ReferenceEquals
                    (filing.PaymentPlanRadioButton,
                    Models.StepFilingInformation.PaymentPlan.Yes))
                ?
                price.pricePaymentPlanChapter7
                :
                0);
        }

    }
}

I originally had (filing.PaymentPlanRadioButton == Models.StepFilingInformation.PaymentPlan.Yes) checking whether or not the radio button was set to “Yes”, but changed it to ReferenceEquals. This doesn’t affect the outcome.

I have my controller assigning the value to PaymentPlanRadioButton to “Yes”, so pricePaymentPlanChapter7 should be the value being added to priceChapter7, but it is not. Instead “0” is being added as the fall back to the condition. So PaymentPlanRadioButton is null even though I am assigning it in the controller.

I cannot figure out how to fix this. If I assign it in the model and get it to work that will not resolve the issue as when I remove the mocking controller and expect a user to choose a radio button it will still be null and the condition will fail.

Here is the “mock” controller:

public class QuoteMailerController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult EMailQuote()
    {
        Calculations calc = new Calculations();
        var total = calc.Chapter7Calculation;

        QuoteData quoteData = new QuoteData
        {
            StepFilingInformation = new Models.StepFilingInformation
            {
                //"No" is commented out, so "Yes" is assigned
                //PaymentPlanRadioButton = 
                    //Models.StepFilingInformation.PaymentPlan.No,
                PaymentPlanRadioButton = 
                    Models.StepFilingInformation.PaymentPlan.Yes,
            }
         };
    }
}

And this is where I store prices (PriceQuote.cs):

public class PriceQuote
{
    public decimal priceChapter7 { get { return 799; } }
    public decimal pricePaymentPlanChapter7 { get { return 100; } }
}

This is my ViewModel:

public class QuoteData
{
    public PriceQuote priceQuote;
    public Calculations calculations;
    public StepFilingInformation stepFilingInformation { get; set; }
    public QuoteData()
    {
        PriceQuote = new PriceQuote();
        Calculations = new Calculations();
    }
}

So, the way this should work is 799 + 100 = 899, since PaymentPlan.Yes is assigned as the value to the radio button in the controller. But instead I am getting just 799 (799 + 0) because when I debug PaymentPlanRadioButton is coming up null.

Any thoughts/guidance?

Just in case, here is the PaymentPlanRadioButton located within StepFilingInformation.cs (and is one of my models):

public enum PaymentPlan
{
    No,
    Yes
}
public class PaymentPlanSelectorAttribute : SelectorAttribute
{
    public override IEnumerable<SelectListItem> GetItems()
    {
        return Selector.GetItemsFromEnum<PaymentPlan>();
    }
}       
[PaymentPlanSelector(BulkSelectionThreshold = 3)]
public PaymentPlan? PaymentPlanRadioButton { get; set; }

Sorry for the length.

Answer 1

Your Calculations class bases it’s math on the StepFilingInformation object it contains. However, you never set StepFilingInformation from within Calculations to anything other than a new, empty object.

Your constructor should probably require a parameter of type StepFilingInformation.

public class Calculations
{
    StepFilingInformation filing;
    public Calculations(StepFilingInformation filing)
    {
       this.filing = filing;
    } 

Regardless of how you pass your calculations class a reference to StepFilingInformation, you must set this value before you run your calculation that depends on it.

Also if QuoteData is your ViewModel, then it shouldn’t contain a reference to your Calculations class. It should only contains results created in the calculations class that the View must display.

StepFilingInformation filing = new Models.StepFilingInformation
{
    PaymentPlanRadioButton = Models.StepFilingInformation.PaymentPlan.Yes,
};

Calculations calc = new Calculations(filing);
var total = calc.Chapter7Calculation;

QuoteData quoteData = new QuoteData //Only include Properties you're going to display in the view model
{
    Total = total
};