asp.net mvc binding between the model and the view

Question

I am new to asp.net mvc . This is how my model looks like:

 [Bind(Exclude = "JournalId")]
public class Journal
{
    [ScaffoldColumn(false)]
    public int JournalId { get; set; }

    [DisplayName("Customer")]
    public int CustomerId { get; set; }

    [DisplayName("Till")]
    public int TillId { get; set; }

    [Required(ErrorMessage = "A Journal name is required")]
    [StringLength(160)]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [DisplayName("Journal creation date")]
    public DateTime Date { get; set; }

    [DisplayName("Journal creation time")]
    public DateTime Time { get; set; }

    public virtual Customer Customer { get; set; }
    public virtual Till Till { get; set; }

}

[Bind(Exclude = "CustomerId")]
public class Customer
{
    [ScaffoldColumn(false)]
    public int CustomerId { get; set; }

    [Required(ErrorMessage = "A customer name is required")]
    [StringLength(160)]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [StringLength(250)]
    public string Address { get; set; }
}


[Bind(Exclude = "TillId")]
public class Till
{
    [ScaffoldColumn(false)]
    public int TillId { get; set; }

    [Required(ErrorMessage = "A till no is required")]
    [StringLength(160)]
    public string TillNo { get; set; }

    [StringLength(100)]
    public string TillOperator { get; set; }
}

This is how my one of my controller's action is defined:

 public ViewResult Index()
    {
        var journals = db.Journals.AsEnumerable<Journal>();
        ViewData["journals"] = journals;
        return View();
    }

and the view :

@model IEnumerable<ErikDemo.Models.Journal>
@foreach (var item in (IEnumerable<ErikDemo.Models.Journal>)ViewData["journals"]) {
<tr>
    <td>
        @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Customer.Name)
    </td>
    <td>
        @Truncate(item.Till.TillNo, 25)
    </td>
    <td>
        @Truncate(item.Name, 25)
    </td>
    <td>
        @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Date)
    </td>
    <td>
        @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Time)
    </td>
    <td>
        @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit", new { id=item.JournalId }) |
        @Html.ActionLink("Details", "Details", new { id=item.JournalId }) |
        @Html.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id=item.JournalId })
    </td>
</tr>

Although when I am debugging I can see in the controller that the list passed to the View is not empty, and also I see that the ViewData["journals"].Local in a watch is not empty, nothing gets displayed. I have also used the View.Model and return View(journals.ToList()) to send data to the View, but nothing seems to work. What is the issue here? Been on that half a day.

Answer 1

This is wrong: (Well it can be done like this, but I think you want to pass a model)

public ViewResult Index()
{
    var journals = db.Journals.AsEnumerable<Journal>();
    ViewData["journals"] = journals;
    return View();
}

Try this:

public ViewResult Index()
{
    var journals = db.Journals.AsEnumerable<Journal>();

    return View(journals); //You just passed journals as a model
}

Also if you are using mvc 3 you can use ViewBag instead of ViewData

Example:

ViewData["Journal"] = "my string";

is the same as

ViewBag.Journal = "my string";

The ViewBag is dynamic, so you can use dot notation.

Additionally

This code:

@model IEnumerable<ErikDemo.Models.Journal>
@foreach (var item in (IEnumerable<ErikDemo.Models.Journal>)ViewData["journals"])

Should be like this:

@model IEnumerable<ErikDemo.Models.Journal>
@foreach (var item in Model)

Update:

I'm not sure what you're doing with this db.Journals.AsEnumerable<Journal>();

You should have a method somewhere that gets data from a table or table(s) and returns Journals. So lets say this all comes from one table in a database:

public class JournalViewModel
{
    public IEnumerable<Journals> GetJournals()
     {
         using(var db = new ErikDataContext())
          {
              return db.Journals.ToList();

          }
     }
}

Then in the action:

public ViewResult Index()
{
    var journals = new JournalsViewModel.GetJournals();

    return View(journals); //You just passed journals as a model
}

Answer 2

Did you forget the <table> tag? If you haven't viewed the source of your page as it is rendered, I would recommend that you do this as a next step.