Question

Is there a way to determine if a call to a controllers action is from a view using the Html.RenderAction function.

This is similar to Request.IsAjaxRequest. If the call comes from a view I would like to just render a partial view rather than the the full view with master page.

BTW Render partial is not a viable solution as the action fetches additional data

Answer 1

Using the ControllerContext.IsChildAction has the given effect. this way I can provide the same HTML using a child action and a ajax request (for fallback on non javascript users)

        if (Request.IsAjaxRequest() || ControllerContext.IsChildAction)
            return PartialView("ViewName", results);