.NET MVC Call method on different controller

Question

Can anybody tell me how to call a method on a different controller from within an action method? I don\'t want to redirect. I want to call a method on a different controller

Answer 1

Could you just instantiate the controller in your action method and call the other method you need?

public ActionResult YourActionMethod()
{
   SomeController c = new SomeController();
   ActionResult result = c.SomeMethod();

   return View();
}

Answer 2

You can use the following approach to invoke a method on the other controller:

var otherController = DependencyResolver.Current.GetService<OtherController>();
var result = otherController.SomeMethod();

This worked for me in ASP.NET MVC5. Hope that it will work for you as well.

Answer 3

I was looking for the same thing, but seriously people, why the need to write such complicated answers.

Here's a post that will answer it very simply: Using Html.ActionLink to call action on different controller

Basically you just have to use this overload of the actionlink: ActionLink(HtmlHelper, String, String, String, Object, Object)

So you will have: ActionLink("linkText", "actionName", "controllerName", routeValues, htmlAttributes)

If you don't have any routeValues (which are the Inputs for the Action) or htmlAttributes, you have to set them as null.

Here's an example call: @Html.ActionLink("Add New Student", "Create", "Student", null, new { @class = "btn btn-primary" })

Answer 4

Sounds in my ears like you should refactor your application, and extract the functionality that generates the string out to a new seperate class (or reuse an existing class, if you have one that fits) and let both controllers use that class.

Answer 5

Looks like you're trying to do something the controllers aren't designed for. Design your required method as an public method in some class and invoke from both controller actions.

Answer 6

You can achieve this via the Action method of HtmlHelper.

In a view, you would do it like this:

@Html.Action("OtherAction")

However it's not straightforward to obtain an instance of HtmlHelper in an action method (by design). In fact it's such a horrible hack that I am reluctant to even post it...

var htmlHelper = new HtmlHelper(new ViewContext(
                                      ControllerContext, 
                                      new WebFormView(ControllerContext, "HACK"),
                                      new ViewDataDictionary(),
                                      new TempDataDictionary(),
                                      new StringWriter()),
                                new ViewPage());

var otherViewHtml = htmlHelper.Action("ActionName", "ControllerName");

This works on MVC 3. You might need to remove the StringWriter arg from the ViewContext constructor for MVC 2, IIRC.

</hack>