Question

Let’s say I have the three following action methods in an MVC3 controller:

public ActionResult ShowReport()
{
    return View("ShowReport");
}

[PageOptions(OutputFormat = OutputFormat.Web)]
public ActionResult ShowReportForWeb()
{
    return View("ShowReport");
}

[PageOptions(OutputFormat = OutputFormat.Pdf)]
public ActionResult ShowReportForPdf()
{
    return View("ShowReport");
}

In my Razor view, I’d like to be able to tell:

1. Whether the PageOptions attribute was attached to the calling action method.
2. If it was, what the value of its OutputFormat property is.

Here’s some pseudo-code illustrating what I’m trying to do:

@if (pageOptions != null && pageOptions.OutputFormat == OutputFormat.Pdf)
{
@:This info should only appear in a PDF.
} 

Is this possible?

Answer 1

LeffeBrune is correct, you should pass that value as part of your ViewModel

Just create an enum

public enum OutputFormatType {
    Web
    PDF
}

And use this in your ViewModel

public class MyViewModel {
    ...
    public OutputFormatType OutputFormatter { get; set; }
}

And then assign the value in your Controller actions

public ActionResult ShowReportForWeb()
{
    var model = new MyViewModel { OutputFormatter = OutputFormatType.Web };
    return View("ShowReport", model);
}

public ActionResult ShowReportForPdf()
{
    var model = new MyViewModel { OutputFormatter = OutputFormatType.PDF };
    return View("ShowReport", model);
}

public ActionResult ShowReport(MyViewModel model)
{
    return View(model);
}