Can you create a strongly typed ASP.NET MVC ViewUserControl of type int or enum?

Question

Hi folks,

i wish to create a reusable ASP.NET MVC ViewUserControl which is strongly typed to an enumeration.

Can this be done? When i try it, it says that the strong type the ViewUserControl can accept, can only be of a reference type :(

This also means i can't pass an int as TModel.

Why do i want to do this? I'n various places of my site, i'm displaying a simple image which is dependant upon an enumeration. So instead of copying that logic in multiple places, I wish to have this resuable ViewUserControl and pass in the enumeration.

eg.

public enum AnimalType
{
   Cat,
   Dog
}

// .. now code inside the view user control ...
switch (animalType)
{
    case AnimalType.Cat: source = "cat.png"; text="cute pussy"; break;
    ... etc ...
}

<img src="<%=Url.Content("~/Images/" + source)%>" alt="<%=text%>" />

I'm guessin the solution would be to NOT create a strongly typed ViewUserControl (because TModel Type can only be of type class) and then do the following..

<% Html.RenderPartial("AnimalFileImageControl", animalType); %>

and in the ViewUserControl ...

AnimalType animalType = (AnimalType) ViewData.Model;
    switch (animalType)
    { ... etc ... }

cheers :)

Answer 1

well, you could have:

public sealed class Box<T> where T : struct {
    public Box(T value) { Value = value; }
    public T Value { get; private set; }
    public static explicit operator T(Box<T> item) {
        return item.Value; } // also check for null and throw an error...
    public static implicit operator Box<T>(T value) {
        return new Box<T>(value); }
}

and use Box<int>, Box<MyEnum>, etc - but personally, I expect it would be easier to use an untyped view and simply cast.