Question

I’m using jqGrid to display some data on a page. Within the controller action, we’re using an anonymous object to represent the data that the jqGrid needs. My question is, is there a way we can create a strongly typed object to represent the jqGrid data that we are sending with Json()?

Main reason for this is so that we can do unit testing with the objects that are being sent to it.

Thanks!

EDIT:

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
        public JsonResult GridData(FormCollection form, string alias, string location, string state)
        {
            int pageSize = Convert.ToInt32(form["rows"]);
            int pageIndex = Convert.ToInt32(form["page"]) - 1;
            var deviceList = this._device.GetList(CreateFilter(location,alias,state),this._securityCache.GetSecurityContext(),pageSize,pageIndex);
            int totalResults = deviceList.TotalRecords;
            int totalPages = (int)Math.Ceiling((float)totalResults / (float)pageSize);
            var jsonData = new {
                total = totalPages,
                page = pageIndex + 1,
                records = totalResults,
                rows = (from device in deviceList.Data
                        select new {i = device.Alias,cell = new string[]{device.Alias,device.Location,device.RatePlan,device.State,device.DateCreated.ToString()}}).ToArray()
                }; 
return Json(jsonData);

This above here works, but we can’t unit test the data that is being passed into the Json() method.

var newJsonData = new JsonJQGridReturnData(); 
                newJsonData.total = totalPages;
                newJsonData.page = pageIndex + 1;
                newJsonData.records = totalResults;
                List<JsonJQGridRow> list = new List<JsonJQGridRow>();
                foreach (var device in deviceList.Data)
                {
                    list.Add(new JsonJQGridRow(device.Alias, new string[] { device.Alias, device.Location, device.RatePlan, device.State, device.DateCreated.ToString() }));
                }
                newJsonData.rows = list.ToArray();      
                _cookieHelper.SaveCookie("DeviceListIndex", this._securityCache.GetSecurityContext().UserID.ToString(), COOKIE_PAGE_SIZE_KEY, pageSize.ToString());
                return Json(newJsonData);
            }

Here is my poor attempt at trying to wrap these into strongly typed objects. Unfortunately, running this gives me a “u is undefined” in the jqGrid file. I suspect that this is because the json being passed in is not correctly formatted. Here are the classes….

[DataContract]
    public class JsonJQGridReturnData
    {
        [DataMember]        
        public int total { get; set; }

        [DataMember]
        public int page { get; set; }

        [DataMember]
        public int records { get; set; }

        [DataMember]
        public JsonJQGridRow[] rows { get; set; }
    }

    [DataContract]
    public class JsonJQGridRow
    {
        public JsonJQGridRow(string i, string[] columns)
        {
            this.i = i;
            this.cells = columns;
        }

        [DataMember]
        public string i { get; set; }

        [DataMember]
        public string[] cells { get; set; }
    }

Answer 1

If I understand your question you can use Generics to do this:

Model:

// represents one row in the JQGrid
        class Customer
        {
            public string firstname { get; set; }
            public string lastname { get; set; }
        }

JQGrid class:

    class JQGridData<TModel>
            {
// add in whatever other properties you want for JQGrid
                public int responseTime {get; set; };
                public List<TModel> rows = new List<TModel>(); 
            }

Controller Action :

public JsonResult GridData(int page)
        {
            var gridData = new JQGridData<Customer>();

// Populate your data here, this is just an example: 
            gridData.rows.Add(new Customer()
            {
                firstname = "fred", lastname = "pharkas"
            });

// return the result
            return Json(gridData, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet); 
        }

Result:

{    
     responseTime: 0       
      rows: [         
            {
                firstname: "fred"
                lastname: "pharkas"
            }
      ]    
}

Is that what you were asking?