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C# ASP.NET MVC Basics Modeling and Presenting Data Using Strongly Typed Views

Posted by Chris Gauthier
Chris Gauthier
Courses Plus Student 6,434 Points

MVC / Model Implementation Question

I am a little confused on how to implement the array information on the characters array.

Can somebody help?

VideoGamesController.cs 
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace Treehouse.Controllers.Models
{
    public class VideoGamesController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult Detail()
        {   
            VideoGame vg = new VideoGame {
                Title = "Super Mario 64";
                Description = "Super Mario 64 is a 1996 platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64.";
            }
            ViewBag.Characters = new string[]
            {
                "Mario",
                "Princess Peach",
                "Bowser",
                "Toad",
                "Yoshi"
            };

            return View(vg);
        }
    }
}
Detail.cshtml 
@{
    ViewBag.PageTitle = "Video Game Detail";
}

<h1>@ViewBag.Title</h1>

<h5>Description:</h5>
<div>@ViewBag.Description</div>

<h5>Characters:</h5>
<div>
    <ul>
        @foreach (var character in ViewBag.Characters)
        {
            <li>@character</li>
        }
    </ul>
</div>
VideoGame.cs 
namespace Treehouse.Models
{
    // Don't make any changes to this class!
    public class VideoGame
    {
        public int Id { get; set; }
        public string Title { get; set; }
        public string Description { get; set; }
        public string[] Characters { get; set; }
        public string Publisher { get; set; }

        public string DisplayText
        {
            get
            {
                return Title + " (" + Publisher + ")";
            }
        }
    }
}

6 Answers

Chris Gauthier
Chris Gauthier
Courses Plus Student 6,434 Points

Allright, that was it. Here is the working code for anyone that wants it:

using System.Web.Mvc;
using Treehouse.Models;

namespace Treehouse.Controllers
{
    public class VideoGamesController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult Detail()
        {
            var videogame = new VideoGame {
                Title = "Super Mario 64",
                Description = "Super Mario 64 is a 1996 platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64.",
                Characters = new string[]
                {
                    "Mario",
                    "Princess Peach",
                    "Bowser",
                    "Toad",
                    "Yoshi"
                }
            };
            return View(videogame);     
        }

    }
}
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,670 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,670 Points

Heh. :smirk: But it's traditional to mark the answer the helped you reach the final solution as the "best answer".

Also, explicit answers without any explanation are strongly discouraged by Treehouse and may be subject to redaction by moderators.

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,670 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,670 Points

Just like you did with "Title" and "Description", you'll remove the "ViewBag." prefix and move it into the object literal that is initializing your VideoGame object. But there's a few other issues:

  • the items inside the literal object should be separated by commas instead of semicolons
  • the instructions said "Add a using directive for the Treehouse.Models namespace.", but it's still missing
  • the instructions did not say to change the namespace
Chris Gauthier
PLUS
Chris Gauthier
Courses Plus Student 6,434 Points
Chris Gauthier
Chris Gauthier
Courses Plus Student 6,434 Points

Im getting closer. But for some reason the problem with my using directive isn't what I need. Can you help ?

 VideoGamesController.cs

using System.Web.Mvc;
using Treehouse.Models;

namespace Treehouse.Controller
{
    public class VideoGamesController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult Detail()
        {
            var videogame = new VideoGame(
                Title = "Super Mario 64",
                Description = "Super Mario 64 is a 1996 platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64.",
                Characters = new Character[] 
                {
                    new Character { Name = "Mario"},
                    new Character { Name="Princess Peach"},
                    new Character { Name="Bowser"},
                    new Character { Name="Toad"},
                    new Character { Name="Yoshi"},
                }
            );

            return View(videogame);
        }
    }
}

namespace Treehouse.Models
{
    // Don't make any changes to this class!
    public class VideoGame
    {
        public int Id { get; set; }
        public string Title { get; set; }
        public string Description { get; set; }
        public string[] Characters { get; set; }
        public string Publisher { get; set; }

        public string DisplayText
        {
            get
            {
                return Title + " (" + Publisher + ")";
            }
        }
    }
}
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,670 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,670 Points

You're close, but the literal initialization object should follow the parentheses of the constructor call, not be inside them.

Also, the Characters should still be a string array. I don't think a Character class is defined anywhere, besides the VideoGame class definition says it's a string array.

Chris Gauthier
PLUS
Chris Gauthier
Courses Plus Student 6,434 Points
Chris Gauthier
Chris Gauthier
Courses Plus Student 6,434 Points

So, do I have to implement the character array in the VideoGame Class?

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,670 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,670 Points

The actual property name is "Characters" (plural, capital "C") and you already have it in your code. But you have it as an array of "Character" objects (which have not been defined). It just needs to be a string array like it was in the code originally provided by the challenge.

Chris Gauthier
PLUS
Chris Gauthier
Courses Plus Student 6,434 Points
Chris Gauthier
Chris Gauthier
Courses Plus Student 6,434 Points

done, thanks again!