Bast Practise: ASP.NET MVC Controller/Action with multiple object types

Question

Hi,

I'm looking for the best method for the following issue I have.

I current have a large number of objects that all inherit for a single base object and are all very similar. Is there a solution available the will allow one create action and one edit action without needing to replicate a lot of the same code.

So for example I might have a person object:

public class PersonBase
{
  public string FirstName { get; set; }
  public string LastName { get; set; }
}

And then I will have a number of objects the inherit from Person like:

public class SalesPerson : PersonBase
{
  public double TotalCommission { get; set; }
}

public class Customer: PersonBase
{
  public string Address { get; set; }
}

Now currently I have an action that will create a customer base:

[HttpPost]
public virtual ActionResult Create(FormCollection collection)
{
  var person = new PersonBase();

  UpdateModel(person);

  if ( Model.IsValid && person.IsValid )
  {
    // Save to the db
  }

  return View();
}

Now I can quite easily copy this code and modify it so I can create a salesPerson and customer but I will have a large number of objects based off PersonBase and it would be a lot of repetition of similar code which I would like to avoid.

Is the way of making the Create action more generic for all types of Person?

Thanks

Answer 1

The solution I found that worked for me was to use the dynamic from C# 4. So my code looks like:

[HttpPost]
public virtual ActionResult Create(int type, FormCollection collection)
{
      dynamic person = new PersonBase();

      if ( type == 1 )
        person = new SalesPerson();
      else if ( type == 2 )
        person = new Customer();

      UpdateModel(person);

      if ( Model.IsValid && person.IsValid )
      {
        // Save to the db
      }

      return View();
}