Question

Let us say I have 3 classes A, B and C. B and C inherit from A which contains the string field Name.

I have implemented the controllers As, Bs and Cs for each class. I can list all instances of B and C in a view called Index produced by controller As.

The controllers Bs and Cs also have a method Details which spews out a view given the id for an instance of B and C respectively.

I am wondering about the cleanest way to produce action links for the details pages for B and C objects? I could use GetType() and produce the controller name based on this but this seems a bit cumbersome.

Hope this makes sense. Looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks.

Christian

Answer 1

You could define an extension method on your A class that will return the name of the controller:

public static class AExtensions
{
    public static string GetControllerName(this A obj)
    {
       // put logic to determine type here
       if( obj is B ) return "BController";
       else if( obj is C ) return "CController";
       else return "AController";

    }
}

Then in your view you could have your link:

@Html.ActionLink("Details", "Details", obj.GetControllerName(), new { id= obj.Id })

This method sort of makes me feel dirty but it works I guess.