Must ASP.NET MVC Controller Methods Return ActionResult?

Question

Being new to ASP.NET MVC, I\'ve been wondering about the signature of Controller methods. In all the examples I\'ve seen, they always seem to return ActionResult, even if th

Answer 1

Yep I have Sanderson's book, and I liked that part about being specific, as that was something vexing me when I was looking at other controller action examples. My philosophy even b4 learning MVC was that since functions (methods that return a value) should be treated as if you were declaring a variable/be substitutable in context for a variable/ref of the same type, be specific about the type, as you would if declaring a var (think of it as wanting to avoiding defnining all your variables as type "Object" in an app - more robust, but you lose some design-time checking and type safety). Facilitates a controller unit test for the correct return type as well.

For related reference, check out Listkov's Substitution Principle (the "L" in "SOLID") also.