How to Render Partial View into a String
I opted for an extension method like the following for an ASP.NET MVC 4 app. I think it's simpler than some of the suggestions I've seen:
public static class ViewExtensions
{
public static string RenderToString(this PartialViewResult partialView)
{
var httpContext = HttpContext.Current;
if (httpContext == null)
{
throw new NotSupportedException("An HTTP context is required to render the partial view to a string");
}
var controllerName = httpContext.Request.RequestContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString();
var controller = (ControllerBase)ControllerBuilder.Current.GetControllerFactory().CreateController(httpContext.Request.RequestContext, controllerName);
var controllerContext = new ControllerContext(httpContext.Request.RequestContext, controller);
var view = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(controllerContext, partialView.ViewName).View;
var sb = new StringBuilder();
using (var sw = new StringWriter(sb))
{
using (var tw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw))
{
view.Render(new ViewContext(controllerContext, view, partialView.ViewData, partialView.TempData, tw), tw);
}
}
return sb.ToString();
}
}
It allows me to do the following:
var html = PartialView("SomeView").RenderToString();
Also, this approach persists any Model, ViewBag and other view data for the view.
DaveDev's answer worked well for me, however when the partial view calls another partial I get "Value cannot be null. Parameter name: view"
Searching around I have made a variant of the following that seems to work well.
public static string RenderPartialToString(string viewName, object model, ControllerContext ControllerContext)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(viewName))
viewName = ControllerContext.RouteData.GetRequiredString("action");
ViewDataDictionary ViewData = new ViewDataDictionary();
TempDataDictionary TempData = new TempDataDictionary();
ViewData.Model = model;
using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter())
{
ViewEngineResult viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(ControllerContext, viewName);
ViewContext viewContext = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, viewResult.View, ViewData, TempData, sw);
viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);
return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
}
}
Usage:
String result = MVCHelpers.RenderPartialToString("PartialViewHere", Model, ControllerContext)
This is a slightly modified version of an answer that works:
public static string RenderPartialToString(string controlName, object viewData)
{
ViewPage viewPage = new ViewPage() { ViewContext = new ViewContext() };
viewPage.ViewData = new ViewDataDictionary(viewData);
viewPage.Controls.Add(viewPage.LoadControl(controlName));
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(sb))
{
using (HtmlTextWriter tw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw))
{
viewPage.RenderControl(tw);
}
}
return sb.ToString();
}
Usage:
string ret = RenderPartialToString("~/Views/MyController/MyPartial.ascx", model);