Is there any attribute relating to AJAX to be set for ASP.NET MVC controller actions?

Question

I want to use partial views with AJAX calls in ASP.NET MVC, and this is the first time I\'m using it. I just searched to see if there is anything special I should know befor

Answer 1

ASP.NET MVC provides an extension method to check if an Request is an Ajax Request. You can use it to decide if you want to return a partial view or json result instead of a normal view.

if (Request.IsAjaxRequest())
{
    return PartialView("name");
}
return View();

To limit an action method to Ajax calls only you can write a custom attribute. In case of a normal request this filter will return a 404 not found http exception.

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Method)]
public class AjaxOnlyAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
     public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
     {
        if (!filterContext.HttpContext.Request.IsAjaxRequest())
        {
            filterContext.HttpContext.Response.StatusCode = 404;
            filterContext.Result = new HttpNotFoundResult();
        }
        else
        {
            base.OnActionExecuting(filterContext);
        }
     }
}

you can use it like that:

[AjaxOnly]
public ActionResult Index() {
    // do something awesome
}