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

Josiah Fitch
PLUS
Josiah Fitch
Courses Plus Student 3,692 Points

Need help with Strongly Typed Views-Specifically having problems instantiating the Characters Array

Ill be sure to add the error codes and descriptions should it not automatically. Anyways I keep getting a namespace error having to do with the Characters array instantiation. I have followed the video to the T and am stuck. If anyone could give me some pointers without copy pasting code that would be nice.

VideoGamesController.cs
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 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);
        }
    }
}
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 + ")";
            }
        }
    }
}
Josiah Fitch
Josiah Fitch
Courses Plus Student 3,692 Points

These are both of my errors

VideoGamesController.cs(42,34): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `Character' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference? VideoGamesController.cs(42,30): error CS0622: Can only use array initializer expressions to assign to array types. Try using a new expression instead Compilation failed: 2 error(s), 0 warnings

5 Answers

Dom Talbot
Dom Talbot
7,686 Points

Hi Josiah,

This had me stumped at first as well.

The Challenge is only asking to 'Move the ViewBag property values to their respective data model properties.'

Using a Character Model is beyond this challenge :)

So it really is as simple as:

VideoGamesController.cs
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);
        }
    }
}
Josiah Fitch
Josiah Fitch
Courses Plus Student 3,692 Points

Makes complete sense, perhaps I was getting a little ahead of myself....Thank you Dom.

HIDAYATULLAH ARGHANDABI
HIDAYATULLAH ARGHANDABI
21,058 Points
namespace Treehouse.Models
{
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;}

        }
}
@model Treehouse.Models.VideoGame


@{
    ViewBag.PageTitle = Model.DisplayText;
}

<h1>@Model.Title</h1>

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

<h5>Characters:</h5>
<div>
    <ul>
        @foreach (var character in Model.Characters)
        {
            <li>@character</li>
        }
    </ul>
</div>
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);
        }
    }
}
HIDAYATULLAH ARGHANDABI
HIDAYATULLAH ARGHANDABI
21,058 Points
@model Treehouse.Models.VideoGame
@{
    ViewBag.PageTitle = Models.DisplayText;
}

<h1>@Model.Title</h1>

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

<h5>Characters:</h5>
<div>
    <ul>
        @foreach (var character in Model.Characters)
        {
            <li>@character.Name</li>
        }
    </ul>
</div>

Why do we change all the viewbags to Models except the Viewbag.PageTitle?