Passing a dictionary to a view Asp.net MVC

Question

I'm pulling data from MongoDB in C# Asp.net MVC2. Here is the code I'm using in the controller.

var mongo = new Mongo();
mongo.Connect();

var db = mongo.GetDatabase("DDL");
var Provinces = db.GetCollection("Provinces");
var documents = Provinces.FindAll().Documents;
ViewData["Document"] = documents;

return View();

Now I'm unsure how to read the data out in the view. The documents dictionary should have some value pairs like:

Name: someName,
Lat: 39.1,
Lon: 77,
note: test not

When I add it in the view like so:

<p><%: ViewData["Document"]%></p>

I get the output:

MongoDB.Driver.Cursor+<>c__Iterator0

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

ViewData is a container of objects. You need to cast it back to its native type before you can use it. Something like this (assuming that your dictionary is a Dictionary<string,string>:

<p>
    Name: <%: ((Dictionary<string, string>)ViewData["Document"])["Name"] %>
    ...
</p>

Answer 2

To start off don't use ViewData. Always use strongly typed views.

var mongo = new Mongo();
mongo.Connect();
var db = mongo.GetDatabase("DDL");
var Provinces = db.GetCollection("Provinces");
var documents = Provinces.FindAll().Documents;
return View(documents.ToArray());

Then strongly type the view and iterate over the model:

<% foreach (var item in Model) { %>
    <div><%: item %></div>
<% } %>

If you are lucky you might even get IntelliSense in the view that will offer you properties of the model.