The ViewModels in my current project had got quite complex; as well as properties copied from model objects, they increasingly had flags used by Views to know whether to render links or sub-sections. The logic which set these properties was bloating Controllers, so I factored it out into objects which populate all non-editable properties of a ViewModel; ViewModelBuilders.

The system has the following components:

  1. ViewModels - objects which provide a View with the information it needs to be rendered. These all implement an empty IViewModel marker interface.
  2. ViewModelBuilders - objects which populate the non-editable properties of a particular type of IViewModel. ViewModelBuilders implement an IViewModelBuilder interface with a Build(IViewModel) method.
  3. A ViewModelBuilderLibrary - a self-populating library of all the available ViewModelBuilders. The Library takes requests to populate an IViewModel, and passes it to the appropriate ViewModelBuilders to be built.
  4. A base Controller which uses the ViewModelBuilderLibrary to populate IViewModels after an Action executes for a GET request, and before an action executes for a POST request. This ensures ViewModels are always populated when they need to be.

An Example

Here’s a User Details action method which populates an IsEditable property on a UserViewModel - obviously this is a very simple example to illustrate the principal. The Controller has a _userRepository it can use to find Users, and an _activeUserFinder it can use to access the currently-active User.

public ActionResult Details(int userId)
{
    User userToEdit = _userRepository.FindUserById(userId);

    UserViewModel viewModel = new UserViewModel(userToEdit)
    {
        IsEditable = IsUserEditable(userToEdit)
    };

    return View(viewModel);
}

private bool IsUserEditable(User userToEdit)
{
    User activeUser = _activeUserFinder.CurrentlyActiveUser;

    return (activeUser == userToEdit) || 
            activeUser.IsInRole("Administrator");
}

The ViewModelBuilder

Now let’s move the IsEditable logic from the Controller to a UserViewModelBuilder; Builder classes are named <ViewModelType>Builder by convention. The IUserRepository and IActiveUserFinder also come across from the Controller.

public class UserViewModelBuilder : IViewModelBuilder
{
    private readonly IActiveUserFinder _activeUserFinder;
    private readonly IUserRepository _userRepository;

    public UserViewModelBuilder(
        IActiveUserFinder activeUserFinder,
        IUserRepository userRepository)
    {
        _activeUserFinder = activeUserFinder;
        _userRepository = userRepository;
    }

    public void Build(IViewModel viewModelToBuild)
    {
        UserViewModel viewModel = (UserViewModel)viewModelToBuild;

        User userToEdit = 
            _userRepository.FindUserById(viewModel.UserId);

        viewModel.IsEditable = IsUserEditable(userToEdit);
    }

    private bool IsUserEditable(User userToEdit)
    {
        User activeUser = _activeUserFinder.CurrentlyActiveUser;

        return (activeUser == userToEdit) || 
                activeUser.IsInRole("Administrator");
    }
}

The ViewModelBuilderLibrary

The ViewModelBuilderLibrary class pairs ViewModelBuilders with the IViewModel type they build and caches them in static scope. It also caches IViewModel properties of IViewModels in order to populate those. The ProcessViewModelProperties method uses some extension methods for IEnumerable which match the core library ones for IEnumerable<T>; Any(), First() and ForEach(). These extension methods are freely available here. Population of an IViewModel occurs recursively down though its properties and its properties’ properties.

public class ViewModelBuilderLibrary
{
    // This is a cache of IViewModel types against the 
    // ViewModelBuilders which build them:
    private static readonly Dictionary<Type, IViewModelBuilder> 
        _viewModelBuilderCache = CreateViewModelBuilderCache();

    // This is a cache of IViewModel types against PropertyInfos 
    // describing their IViewModel properties:
    private static readonly Dictionary<Type, PropertyInfo[]> 
        _viewModelModelPropertiesCache = 
            CreateViewModelModelPropertiesCache();

    public void BuildViewModel(IViewModel viewModelToBuild)
    {
        BuildViewModel(viewModelToBuild.GetType(), viewModelToBuild);
    }

    private static void BuildViewModel(
        Type viewModelType, 
        IViewModel viewModelToBuild)
    {
        // Keys contains the Types of the IViewModels which the keyed 
        // ViewModelBuilders build:
        _viewModelBuilderCache.Keys
            .Where(bvmt => bvmt.IsAssignableFrom(viewModelType))
            .ForEach(bvmt => 
            {
                _viewModelBuilderCache[bvmt].Build(viewModelToBuild);

                ProcessViewModelProperties(bvmt, viewModelToBuild);
            });
    }

    private void ProcessViewModelProperties(
        Type viewModelType,
        IViewModel viewModelToBuild)
    {
        if (!_viewModelModelPropertiesCache.ContainsKey(viewModelType))
        {
            return;
        }

        _viewModelModelPropertiesCache[viewModelType].ForEach(pi =>
        {
            object viewModelPropertyValue = 
                pi.GetValue(viewModelToBuild, null);

            IViewModel propertyViewModel = 
                viewModelPropertyValue as IViewModel;

            if (propertyViewModel != null)
            {
                BuildViewModel(
                    propertyViewModel.GetType(), 
                    propertyViewModel);
            }
            else
            {
                IEnumerable viewModelEnumerable = 
                    (IEnumerable)viewModelPropertyValue;

                if ((viewModelEnumerable != null) && 
                     viewModelEnumerable.Any())
                {
                    viewModelType = 
                        viewModelEnumerable.First().GetType();

                    viewModelEnumerable.ForEach(vm => 
                        BuildViewModel(viewModelType, (IViewModel)vm));
                }
            }
        });
    }

    #region Setup Methods

    private static Dictionary<Type, IViewModelBuilder> 
        CreateViewModelBuilderCache()
    {
        IEnumerable<Type> allAvailableClassTypes = Assembly
            .GetExecutingAssembly()
            .GetAvailableTypes(typeFilter: t => !t.IsInterface);

        IEnumerable<Type> allViewModelTypes = allAvailableClassTypes
            .Where(t => typeof(IViewModel).IsAssignableFrom(t))
            .ToArray();

        return allAvailableClassTypes
            .Where(t => typeof(IViewModelBuilder).IsAssignableFrom(t))
            .Select(t => (IViewModelBuilder)InjectionService.Resolve(t))
            .ToDictionary(
                vmb => GetViewModelBuilderBuiltType(
                    allViewModelTypes, 
                    vmb),
                vmb => vmb);
    }

    private static Type GetViewModelBuilderBuiltType(
        IEnumerable<Type> allViewModelTypes,
        IViewModelBuilder viewModelBuilder)
    {
        // Builder classes are named <ViewModelType>Builder 
        // by convention:
        string viewModelTypeName = viewModelBuilder.GetType().Name
            .Replace("Builder", null);

        Type viewModelType = allViewModelTypes
            .FirstOrDefault(vmt => vmt.Name == viewModelTypeName);

        if (viewModelType == null)
        {
            throw new NotSupportedException(
                "Unable to find a matching ViewModel Type " + 
                "for ViewModelBuilder " + 
                viewModelBuilder.GetType().FullName);
        }

        return viewModelType;
    }

    private static Dictionary<Type, PropertyInfo[]> 
        CreateViewModelModelPropertiesCache()
    {
        return _viewModelBuilderCache.Keys.ToDictionary(
            vmt => vmt,
            vmt => vmt
                .GetProperties(
                    BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance)
                .Where(PropertyIsIViewModelType())
                .ToArray());
    }

    private static Func<PropertyInfo, bool> PropertyIsIViewModelType()
    {
        // The PropertyInfo is one we want to cache if the property is 
        // an IViewModelBuilder type, or a generic IEnumerable with an 
        // IViewModelBuilder generic argument:
        return pi => 
            typeof(IViewModel).IsAssignableFrom(pi.PropertyType)
            ||
            (typeof(IEnumerable).IsAssignableFrom(pi.PropertyType)
            &&
            pi.PropertyType.IsGenericType
            &&
            typeof(IViewModel).IsAssignableFrom(
                pi.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments().First()));
    }

    #endregion
}

The Base Controller

Finally, these two methods in a base Controller class plug the ViewModelBuilderLibrary into the ASP.NET MVC pipeline; the base Controller class has the ViewModelBuilderLibrary as one of its properties.

protected override void OnActionExecuting(
    ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
    if (filterContext.HttpContext.Request
            .RequestType.ToUpperInvariant() == "POST")
    {
        IViewModel viewModel;

        if (IsIViewModelViewRequest(filterContext, out viewModel))
        {
            ViewModelBuilderLibrary.BuildViewModel(viewModel);
        }
    }

    base.OnActionExecuting(filterContext);
}

protected override void OnActionExecuted(
    ActionExecutedContext filterContext)
{
    if (filterContext.HttpContext.Request
            .RequestType.ToUpperInvariant() == "GET")
    {
        IViewModel viewModel;

        if (IsIViewModelViewResult(filterContext, out viewModel))
        {
            ViewModelBuilderLibrary.BuildViewModel(viewModel);
        }
    }

    base.OnActionExecuted(filterContext);
}

private static bool IsIViewModelViewRequest(
   ActionExecutingContext context,
   out IViewModel viewModel)
{
    if (context.ActionParameters == null ||
       !context.ActionParameters.Any())
    {
        viewModel = null;
        return false;
    }

    viewModel = context.ActionParameters
        .Select(kvp => kvp.Value)
        .OfType<IViewModel>()
        .FirstOrDefault();

    return viewModel != null;
}

private static bool IsIViewModelViewResult(
    ActionExecutedContext context,
    out IViewModel viewModel)
{
    ViewResult viewResult = context.Result as ViewResult;

    if (viewResult == null)
    {
        viewModel = null;
        return false;
    }

    viewModel = viewResult.ViewData.Model as IViewModel;

    return viewModel != null;
}

Summing Up

I’ve found using ViewModelBuilders to have several advantages:

  1. More isolated responsibilities; ViewModel population occurs in dedicated objects, better satisfying the Single Responsibility Principle.

  2. Easier to test; I can test ViewModel population without creating or invoking any methods on a Controller.

  3. Less data written into hidden fields; as ASP.NET MVC is stateless I’ve previously used hidden fields on the client to persist property values; now the only data required on the client is identifiers for the objects to which a View relates - everything else is reliably, consistently and transparently populated on the server.