Can ASP.NET MVC return a javascript response like Ruby on Rails can?

Question

Hello. I'm diving into ASP.NET MVC and I'm coming from a Ruby on Rails background. I'm trying to understand how ASP MVC handles AJAX functionality and, after reading some of the tutorials on the ASP website, it appears they implement AJAX functionality very differently. One of the ways that RoR handles AJAX functionality is by returning ruby-embedded javascript code that is executed as soon as it is received by the browser. This makes implementing AJAX really simple and quite fun. Can ASP.NET MVC return a javascript response?

Answer 1

just user return JavaScript(script)

You would have to execute the java script manually on the View

To be more specific you can make the controller action return type JavaScriptResult

Answer 2

What you are talking about is called javascript generators in the RoR world and there's no equivalent in the ASP.NET MVC world. Here's a blog post that illustrates the basics of implementing a Rails-like RJS for ASP.NET MVC (the blog post uses prototypejs but could be easily adapted to work with jquery).

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Here's another approach using jquery:

public ActionResult Foo()
{
    return Json(new { prop1 = "value1", prop2 = "value2" });
}

and to consume:

$.getJSON('/home/foo', function(result) {
    // TODO: use javascript and work with the result here, 
    // the same way you would work in a RJS like template
    // but using plain javascript
    if (result.prop1 === 'value1') {
        alert(result.prop2);
    }
});

Answer 3

Also worth taking a look at is JsonResult which extends ActionResult. I usually use this when making AJAX requests for data of some sort.