Programming with ASP.NET MVC4 - Part 02

Accessing model data from a controller 

In this fragment I am going to explain how to retrieve data from database by controller and display using view template. If you are new to the MVC refer part1.

Step 1:  Add controller to your MyMVCMovieList project. Choose and add following details to your controller when adding,

• Controller Name :- MovieController
• Template: - Controller with read/write actions and views, using Entity Framework.
• Model class: - Movie (MvcMovie.Models).
• Data context class: - MovieDBContext (MvcMovie.Models).

In ASP.NET MVC 4 automatically create the CRUD (view templates for create, edit, delete, index and details) action methods and views.

Run the application and browse the Movie controller by appending /Movie to the URL. It show up page same as index, because we haven’t add anything yet.

Click on create movie button and create couple of movies. Try delete and edit too.

Movie Create page

Movie List

Let’s go through the generated code.

Open the MovieController.cs file look at the Index method.

Above code is for to get all entries of movie table of database and to pass them to the view.

Now look at the generated Details method.

Above method says, an instance of Movie model pass in to the view (ASP.NET MVC provides the ability to pass strongly typed data or objects to a view template. This strongly typed approach enables better compile-time checking of your code and richer IntelliSense in the Visual Studio Express editor.).

Let’s move to view templates. When examine all generated .cshtml files you will notice there is word a

@model. It represents the type of object that the view expecting. As the example let’s take Index view and the Index method in MovieControlller. In method return the details of all movies stored in database, in view displays data returned from the controller.