Returning a list to strongly typed view using viewbag

Question

I am trying to return a list of customers to a strongly typed view using the viewbag and am having some difficulties as im new to MVC and Razor, can anyone kindly offer any advice on the following problem please?

I have the following Code in my controller,

  public ViewResult Index()
    {
        var q = from a in db.Customers
        select a;
        ViewBag.customer = q;
        return View(db.CustomerSites.ToList());
    }

and this code in my view

@foreach (var customer in Model)
{
<tr>
 <td>
        @ViewBag.customer.CustomerName
   <td>
   <td>
        @customer.UnitNo
    </td>
    <td>
        @Truncate(customer.StreetName, 25)
    </td>
    <td>
        @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit", new { id=customer.Id }) |
        @Html.ActionLink("Details", "Details", new { id=customer.Id }) |
        @Html.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id=customer.Id })
    </td>
   </tr>
}

So i am retrieving a list of customers and customer sites, the sites are typed to the view,

@model IEnumerable<trsDatabase.Models.CustomerSite>

I am trying extract CustomerName from the list of customers using

@ViewBag.customer.CustomerName

But this is generating an error saying the "Customer" type doesnt contain a defintion for customer name but it does as shown below so im not sure why the error is occuring.

namespace trsDatabase.Models
{
    public class Customer
    {

        [ScaffoldColumn(false)]
        public int Id { get; set; }
        [StringLength(50), Required(ErrorMessage = "Customer name required, please enter a customer name")]
        public string CustomerName { get; set; }
        [DisplayName("Contact Name")]
        [StringLength(50), Required(ErrorMessage = "Primary contact name required, please enter a contact name")]
        public string PrimaryContactName { get; set; }
        [DisplayName("Secondary Contact")]
        public string SecondaryContactName { get; set; }
        [DisplayName("Email")]
        [StringLength(50), Required(ErrorMessage = "Primary email address is required please enter an email address")]
        public string PrimaryEmailAddress { get; set; }
        [DisplayName("Secondary Email")]
        public string SecondaryEmailAddress { get; set; }
        [ScaffoldColumn(false)]
        public DateTime RegisteredDate { get; set; }
        [DisplayName("Contact No")]
        public string PrimaryContactNo { get; set; }
        [DisplayName("Secondary Contact No")]
        public string SecondaryContactNo { get; set; }
        [DisplayName("Waste Carrier Ref")]
        public string WasteCarrierRef { get; set; }
        [DisplayName("Unit No")]
        public string UnitNo { get; set; }
        [DisplayName("Street Name")]
        [StringLength(50), Required(ErrorMessage = "Street name required, please enter a street name ")]
        public string StreetName { get; set; }
        [StringLength(50), Required(ErrorMessage = "Town required, please enter a town")]
        public string Town { get; set; }
        [StringLength(50), Required(ErrorMessage = "County is required, please enter a county")]
        public string County { get; set; }
        [StringLength(10), Required(ErrorMessage = "Postcode is required, please enter a postcode")]
        public string Postcode { get; set; }
        public List<CustomerSite> CustomerSites { get; set; }
    }
}

Update:

I still cant get this to do what I need, I have created a master view model that includes

public IEnumerable <Customer> SomeCustomer { get; set; }
public IEnumerable <CustomerSite> CustomerSites { get; set; }

Then in my view,

@model IEnumerable<trsDatabase.Models.masterViewModel>

If i try to access the model by typing using a for each

@foreach (var customer in Model)

When I type @customer. It will only let me access the two lists not the individual properties in the list.

I thought I would have been able to do this with e.g. @customer.CustomerSites.UnitNo

But the furthest I can go is @customer.CustomerSites

Do you have any ideas on what I'm doing wrong here?

Answer 1

I think you can make this a bit better. First - create a new class called a ViewModel. Add this to your models folder, call it for ex. CustomerSitesViewModel.cs

In it, add a definition for

public IEnumerable Customers {get;set;}
public IEnumerable CustomerSites {get;set;}

Or you can create a ViewModel CustomerSiteViewModel.cs which contains

public Customer CustomerDetails {get;set;}
public CustomerSite CustomerSiteDetails {get;set;}

You could name the fields Customer and CustomerSite but I didn't do that for demo purposes so you don't get stuck in a recursive loop not realizing which one to call.

Then your view (to view one) is

@model CustomerViewViewModel

or if you need a list

@model IEnumerable

This is the preferred way as opposed to ViewBag data. It's strongly typed. easier to follow, and less error prone.

Answer 2

q is not a customer, but a sequence of customers. Therefore, when you say ViewBag.customer = q;, the ViewBag.customer property becomes of type IEnumerable<Customer>, which, quite naturally, does not have a CustomerName property.